Cover Photo: Teter Rock Milky Way by Mickey Shannon Photography
In the Bewilderment
In the Bewilderment is a contemplative collection of poems inspired by the tallgrass prairie and the restorative power of the natural world. Blending intimate reflections with vivid observations of wildlife, weather, seasons, and solitude, Ryan Kegley explores grief, wonder, belonging, spirituality, and the search for peace in an unsettled age. These poems move between prairie trails, forests, creeks, and quiet domestic moments, inviting readers to slow down and reconnect with what is essential. Both tender and expansive, In the Bewilderment offers a deeply human meditation on presence, stewardship, community, and the grace found in living attentively each day anew again.
Advance praise for In the Bewilderment
Ryan Kegley’s In the Bewilderment leads us through prairie trails that transcribe meadowlarks and blazing stars, wild turkeys and sweet pea, bison and sun goldening the grasses. These poems call to mind Dickinson’s “forever is composed of nows” as they hold a deep attention to each moment, reminding us that the heart can also be an organ of listening. There are journeys to the edge of the earth and lyrics built on short hills, but always there is grace and gratitude for the small beauties of this world. Here, the wild grasses renew us and the birds carol the seasons, these moving meditations remind us that walking is its own form of stillness. Kegley has learned the lessons of profoundly loving and stewarding a landscape and its ecosystem, and his poems are here to invite us to stay awhile, breathe out, listen, and let go.
—Traci Brimhall
Kansas poet Laureate, 2023–2026
Through his poetry, Ryan captures the immense power of the prairie and the critical importance of developing a reciprocal relationship with the land. Through his stewardship and prose of Willis Prairie, one of the few remaining tallgrass prairies, we are reminded that land conservation is a responsibility we all must participate in to ensure stories of connectedness continue to resonate with and inspire future generations.
—Kaitlin Stanley
executive director, Kansas land trust
Ryan Kegley has rooted his life inside one of the smallest remaining ecosystems in the country—the tallgrass prairie. With open heart and pen in hand, he wanders the preserve, attending to a place most people look past, rendering it through deeply moving eloquence. The result is In the Bewilderment. His work reminds us what it means to quiet our thoughts, to belong somewhere, and to honor the yearning that lives inside us. The poems gathered here are psalms, many of them moored to his life on the prairie. In them you will find celebrations of the simple, radical act of being alive.
—Nathaniel Wilder
award-winning photographer & filmmaker
About the Author
Ryan Kegley lives in the Flint Hills on the outskirts of Manhattan, Kansas. His work has appeared in The New Territory, in the Writing the Land project, and elsewhere. In the Bewilderment is his first book.