In her debut collection of poetry, Katherine Riegel explores the secrets that lurk in the wide-open spaces of the Midwest, images of prairie as ocean never far from the surface-as James Wright wrote, "Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness/Of the Midwest?" Here are fairytale doors that lead to horses and clover, sensuality and regret. Here, among the drifting leaves, are sketches of a family as ecosystem, complex and competing. In these poems, songbirds sing of loss and remembrance. Castaway is an homage to a childhood, a family, a place. It is a book about memory and mourning, yearning, and just how far words can take us in the effort to reclaim what we've lost.