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Publication Date: November 15, 2026
Paperback, 96 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-65-9
A new collection of poetry from award-winning author Nancy Takacs examining the intersection of the natural and human world, informed and shaped by the context of the Hungarian and Polish cultural conventions and Catholic influence of her upbringing.
Praise for Nancy Takacs & A Whispering Beetle
Takacs pulls many and various narrative threads and fashions them into a fine fabric whose patterns and colors form a vibrant whole. Extended family and its histories; beloved landscapes, domestic and wild; their flora, fauna, and mutations of weather; memories and ghosts, whose voices often intertwine – all are conveyed in her quiet, precise, and welcoming voice. Her cloth envelopes us like a warm shawl, as though we've always known her, and she, us.
—B.J. Buckley, author of Flyover Country
In A Whispering Beetle, Nancy Takacs invokes the talismanic powers of food, language, and tradition, experienced poem by poem as eddying currents of memory and identity. Yet there is also always near at hand the sensuous pull of nature, that other wellspring of kinship, where the solitary self finds solace and sanctuary. “It might be good,” Takacs writes, “to let night close around you with fireflies.” This is, by any measure, a dazzling new collection.
—Mike White, author of Addendum to a Miracle, Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize
Nancy Takacs’s poetry holds a voice so calm, so wise and resplendent, so full of wonder that each poem quietly and fully blossoms. Whether ruminating on a butterfly, lavender, an old Hungarian aunt, a runaway Catholic priest, Christmas ornaments or sweet peas, Takacs treats each subject with a fierce tenderness and honesty, bringing the reader to a deeper appreciation of “the natural order of things.” As the speaker says of a single lilac, “she believes in herself / her fresh artistry.” Here is a poet confident in herself and her artistry. And each poem proves she should be.
—Sunni Brown Wilkinson, author of Rodeo, Donald Justice Poetry Prize
About the Author
Nancy Takacs is a recipient of The Juniper Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and two 15 Bytes magazine’s full-length poetry book prizes, among other awards. She has twice been a resident fellow at the Ucross Foundation. Nancy was the inaugural poet laureate of Helper City, a Utah art hub, and is the founder and director of the Steamboat Mountain Poetry Reading Series in Helper. A former wilderness studies and literature / creative writing educator at Utah State University Eastern, she continues to teach poetry writing to adults of all ages at the Senior Center in Price, Utah, and to poetry groups in the Intermountain West and near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. She lives in central Utah and spends time near Lake Superior with her husband poet Jan Minich, their two pups Micah and Zoey, and a fifty-year-old box turtle Seattle.
Publication Date: November 15, 2026
Paperback, 96 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-65-9
A new collection of poetry from award-winning author Nancy Takacs examining the intersection of the natural and human world, informed and shaped by the context of the Hungarian and Polish cultural conventions and Catholic influence of her upbringing.
Praise for Nancy Takacs & A Whispering Beetle
Takacs pulls many and various narrative threads and fashions them into a fine fabric whose patterns and colors form a vibrant whole. Extended family and its histories; beloved landscapes, domestic and wild; their flora, fauna, and mutations of weather; memories and ghosts, whose voices often intertwine – all are conveyed in her quiet, precise, and welcoming voice. Her cloth envelopes us like a warm shawl, as though we've always known her, and she, us.
—B.J. Buckley, author of Flyover Country
In A Whispering Beetle, Nancy Takacs invokes the talismanic powers of food, language, and tradition, experienced poem by poem as eddying currents of memory and identity. Yet there is also always near at hand the sensuous pull of nature, that other wellspring of kinship, where the solitary self finds solace and sanctuary. “It might be good,” Takacs writes, “to let night close around you with fireflies.” This is, by any measure, a dazzling new collection.
—Mike White, author of Addendum to a Miracle, Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize
Nancy Takacs’s poetry holds a voice so calm, so wise and resplendent, so full of wonder that each poem quietly and fully blossoms. Whether ruminating on a butterfly, lavender, an old Hungarian aunt, a runaway Catholic priest, Christmas ornaments or sweet peas, Takacs treats each subject with a fierce tenderness and honesty, bringing the reader to a deeper appreciation of “the natural order of things.” As the speaker says of a single lilac, “she believes in herself / her fresh artistry.” Here is a poet confident in herself and her artistry. And each poem proves she should be.
—Sunni Brown Wilkinson, author of Rodeo, Donald Justice Poetry Prize
About the Author
Nancy Takacs is a recipient of The Juniper Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and two 15 Bytes magazine’s full-length poetry book prizes, among other awards. She has twice been a resident fellow at the Ucross Foundation. Nancy was the inaugural poet laureate of Helper City, a Utah art hub, and is the founder and director of the Steamboat Mountain Poetry Reading Series in Helper. A former wilderness studies and literature / creative writing educator at Utah State University Eastern, she continues to teach poetry writing to adults of all ages at the Senior Center in Price, Utah, and to poetry groups in the Intermountain West and near the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. She lives in central Utah and spends time near Lake Superior with her husband poet Jan Minich, their two pups Micah and Zoey, and a fifty-year-old box turtle Seattle.
