Bøger af Carol Leavitt Altieri

Carol Altieri's deeply moving poems revolve around the death of her daughter, Alicia. Moving from a place of darkness where "The land is burned dark / and I can not find a taper to light," she ultimately affirms life by utilizing crocus as a metaphor for her spirit that is "always looking ahead, / stalwart even in late snow." Exploring Alaska, Costa Rica, the coast of Cornwall and New Zealand, Altieri struggles with loss, revealing, "over granite boulders, I reach / for handholds." These are not poems that can be skimmed over, forgetting the last while reading the next because they are written with an unsentimental voice that provides an uncompromising encounter with the reality of death. Altieri presents collages of the natural world in lush poems that look closely at the physical cycles of the earth in order to bring together the shards of her life created by her daughter's tragic death. Exploring her personal history and the loss of her daughter, Atieri places them in the wider context of the natural world by creating powerful poems which become hymns that "emerge from shrubbery. " Her abiding love for her daughter darts in and out of the collection, as Altieri learns that in spite of death, Alicia is everywhere she "walked, climbed, hiked and skied." Finally, the force of love in the human heart prevails. Still Brooding on a Strong Branch teaches us how to light a torch that the heart can follow through the darkness. Vivian Shipley

A compelling and rare treat, The Jade Bower: New and Selected Poems by award-winning poet Carol Leavitt Altieri is a pendulum that swings between the brevity and misfortune of the natural world. A sheer and illuminating beauty is balanced on the long legs of poetics as the poet conveys the necessities of art and life in this collection that includes nearly ninety environmental humanistic poems. Broken into three sections, poems such as "Jesus Christ Lizards," "Viewing Giant Tortoises at Galapagos," "In Brazil's Rainforest Tribal Chief Marimo Fights Loggers" and "Wild Horses of Smoke Creek Desert," prove evocative with an incredible immediacy and passion. Often sublime, never subtle, these poems are imagistic, haunting and, ultimately, hopeful. As the poet moves through the perils of environmental lust and abuse, she offers a view of the perfect, unblemished earth that readers will revel and celebrate.

Sea Turtle Breaking ThroughSwimming and pushing hard through the daily tightness, teasing oxygen from the oceanmy loggerhead turtle is determined to gain mileage and not take forever to get safely ashore.She must be vigilant watch out for predators and escape from a sea lion to find a homeon a sandy beach and lookfor a safe place to lay her eggs.She did not burrow like a clam on the bottom of the ocean.Instead, she smashesthrough the roaring blue-green waves. With her bright determined body,she is strong of heart, breaking through all setbacks, knowing time is running out.If she arrives on the sand she will haulherself up the beach at night and lay her fragile eggs.ContentsPart OneOur Community of Dairy Cows//1 Oak Tree Monarch//4 Black-Capped Chickadees in Madison//6Hunger Drives Evolution//8 Japanese Cherry Tree-Sakura//10 Lucca Biodynamic//11Wounds of War//13It's Complicated//15Landscape of Change//16 Beloved Adino//18 Milford Track//21Butterflies Rock the Block//23A Galaxy of Worlds, Boreal Conifer Forest//24 Columbia Quindio Wax Palm Trees//26 Watching Three Blue Leviathans//28A Geyser Erupting//30Deacon Grave's Native Wildflower Walk//32 Part TwoThe Fightback of the Kirkland Warbler//37 Black Birds Fly//38Hiking Along to Acadia//40Imperiled Rhythms of the Great Barrier Reef//42 The End of the Line//44Snowball the Cockatoo Grooves//47 Family//49Celestial Divination//51 Star Viewpoint//54Starry Sky Connections//56 Moon Gazing//58Hannah//59 Alyssa//61Visit from my Grandson//63Integrity and Dignity from Deep Within//64Good Luck and Safe Crossing//66White-Breasted Nuthatches//68 Our Orchard//69Breaking Through//70Lakewood Ranch-Another World

Chronicles of Humans with Nature is a follow-up to Still Brooding on a Strong Branch; a pendulum that swings between the memories and experiences of family members and our engagement with the natural world. In this collection there are eighty na-ture and humanistic poems that honor the memory, pay tribute to, and sanctify the lives of loved ones. One of the most central and universal topics for poetry is some aspect of personal sorrow, grief, mourning or another related loss, springing from the central core of the human condition. The poems extend in rivers beyond the loss in terms of their emotional and imaginative range that one hopes will transcend and reverberate in many places. I have tried to create multi-dimensional poems-- broad and deep, models of us humans with nature, as rich as we are in the full world. Poetry writing has taught me to search for all the moments in nature and experiences where life is on the edge, where change is only a heartbeat away. It is the inevitability of change and loss that is the most somber reality of our world.