Intimate Geography is a poetic record of discovery. Ishmael Von Heidrick-Barnes invites his readers to join him on an international trek through many of this century's major events. It is a journey where the boundaries between person and place, language and life counter-intuitively vanish under the lens of poetry. When Ishmael points the telescopic eye of verse at the world, he finds the world looking back. When he turns the same navigational instrument inward towards his psyche, the unedited universe streams into focus.“Each poem is a chiseled granite diamond. They dazzle, and wound, and won’t be dismissed. Your life will never be the same once you’ve held one in your hand.”—Karen Kenyon, author of Sunshower and The Brontë Family: Passionate Literary Geniuses“Precariously positioned between blades or floating ecstatically, enigmatically between mirrors, found in the operating theater or a Babylonian brick, the bounties or the bankruptcy of the human spirit, Heidrick-Barnes’ poetry offers the challenge to continue changing the lens with which we see the world. These poems are a gift of sharply focused insights and deep compassion.”—Shadab Zeest Hashmi, author of Baker of Tarifa