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This slim volume of poetry about gardens and flowers and life in general is
a hospitable book, in the sense that hospitality means creating space. This is
poetry that slows you down, that gives you plenty of room to absorb, to feel,
to contemplate and to respond.
All of the poems in this collection are infused with flowers and gardens and
seasons. They’re about cycles: beginnings and endings, springs and falls, mornings
and evenings. This poetry is very conversational—the speakers have strong
voices that talk back and forth about themes and questions broached in
other poems in the collection.
In general, the poems have three types of speakers, loosely divided by the
types of poem titles. The poems with flower name titles are voices of those
respective flowers speaking to their gardener. Those called “Matins”
and “Vespers” (morning and evening prayers) are just that—prayers
and questions from a human to her maker. And in those titled based on more hard-to-hold
concepts, like wind and light, the maker responds to the human.
This poetry is full of color and light and shade and fragrance and enough space
to experience all of it in an unhurried way. This is a good book to bring
you down after a stressful day at work—reading it is like wandering through
a garden and getting a chance to look at each flower individually.
