According to the preface to Don Welch’s latest collection of poems, “Gnomes” are defined as: short expressions, from a word meaning judgment, opinion, purpose; of, or pertaining to, someone originally Greek, especially a poet. A species of diminutive beings, usually shriveled old men who troll interiors, guarding earth’s treasures.

This is an apt description of Welch’s book, indeed. The senior poet of Nebraska and the Great Plains, Don Welch may sardonically regard himself as the “shriveled old man” who both explores the Plains’ interiors and, by writing about them, becomes the protector of the earth’s treasures.

The gnomes in this collection are beautiful little crystals of verse, reminiscent of the brevity of ancient Chinese poetry but purposefully armed with the occidental twists of language and experience that only someone immersed and baptized in the spirit of the local can wield. Welch’s poems are vertical moments for our busy horizontal lives. They are like pendants of beaded water, their careful silences speaking loudly through our din.