Books
No Name for This Season
—Debut Poetry Collection
Bittersweet: The Certainty of Change
Bittersweet: The Certainty of Change is the debut poetry collection from Cynthia Winter, published in 2026. It gathers eighty-eight pages of poems and original art: illustrations in ink and watercolor, photographs taken by the author, and poems drawn from a lifetime of close attention to the natural world and the people in it.
The collection moves through five sections: Portraits, Impressions, Seasons, Snapshots, and Spirit. They range from intimate character studies of people she has known to brief, precise impressions of the natural world at the edge of change. A vine that strangles trees but keeps its brilliant color through winter. A veteran who parks at the end of the driveway so he won’t frighten you. Geese rising from a familiar home, forming their V, taking flight. She writes, as she has always written, only when something has moved her deeply enough to demand it.
New
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—Testimonials
What People Are Saying
“Cynthia Winter’s debut poetry collection, Bittersweet, finds beauty in small moments — a ‘choir of cricket song,’ a street performer finding her voice, an old man caring for an old dog. Nature thrives in these epiphanic pearls of observation — a ripple of wind across a still lake, the hummingbird’s iridescent green, the deep wisdom of migrating geese, milkweed pods bursting with potential life. Here are poems of quiet celebration and self-reflection; poems that harness the power of water and time to sow the seeds of kindness and hope.”
—Hollie Hardy, author of Lions Like Us
“Bittersweet: The Certainty of Change is a debut collection from a poet who has been paying close attention for a long time. Cynthia Winter writes only about things she has actually witnessed, and that commitment to the specific and observed gives these poems their particular quality of stillness and truth.”
—Sharon
“Cynthia Winter has a way of noticing the little things and bringing them to our attention - how milkweed bursts rather than breaks, how a dragonfly skims the pond, how we can learn life lessons from a little dog. The author's photos and drawings add to the sense of quiet, peaceful joy in the world around us.”
—Pamela M.
“I loved every page. I spent an hour reading these beautiful poems, and then I read them again. Cynthia shares her very intimate and personal collection of words and illustrations beautifully and eloquently. I was honored to have been given a glimpse into this beautiful person's heart and thoughts.”
—Lynda Seiling