Gordons enthusiasm is infectious and her ability to work across diverse topics admirable The poems included here feel natural and fitting not impositions Her writing is perceptive and funny and thoughtful Reading Fungal it becomes easier and more interesting to pay more attention to the outer world and less to the inner This transmission of the appreciation for nature from author to reader is a particularly high compliment to Gordons work

Ariel Gordon is my favourite force of nature a poet and essayist whose enthusiasm is a chief characteristic matched only by her abundant generosity and community spirit A spirit that extends to trees as reflected in her previous essay collection Treed Walking in Canadas Urban Forest and now mushrooms in her latest Fungal Foraging in the Urban Forest Which is a book about seeing and looking and finding and making connections and taking wild leaps My favourite part of the book or maybe the part that most resonated was when Gordon makes a soup from foraged verpas and is torn between a fear of poisoning herself and her aversion to food waste spoiler the latter wins And Ariel lives

This is a book about nature and human nature that will make you to laugh think and selfreflect Its also a book that combines both the sublime economy of language and keen observational skills of Ariel Gordon the poet with the obsessions and appetite for adventure and discovery that drive her as a nonfiction writer Its the perfect blend and Fungal is more than worth the time to read