Finding Tongues In Trees

By Barbara Larsen

Finding Tongues in Trees, celebrated Door County poet Barbara Larsen's sixth poetry collection, takes us on a journey that explores the natural world, her life experiences, works of great poets, and the transcendence of the commonplace. The poet joins her acute observation and insight with superb craftsmanship to bring us a set of poems that is resonant and thought-provoking.

In the first chapter - "Finding Tongues in Trees," the poet is inspired by the words of Shakespeare and the natural world around her. Her poems take on topics ranging from geese and swans to the language of astrophysicists.

Chapter Two, "The Tender Things," finds poems dating from Larsen's depression era roots in a small Wisconsin town. We experience her reflections on the people and events of her life that brought her to now.

Poems "prompted by words and lines styles of other poets" are collected in the third chapter, "Sketching at the Louvre." The poet flexes her poetic muscle, experiencing everything from the gentle sweetness of a fall plum to the process of building a ship of death.

The final chapter, "A Day Like Any Day," takes us on a journey that unabashedly turns the commonplace into the transcendent. At times wistful, at time humorous, we experience brewing a perfect cup of tea, the passage of a cargo ship, and a skirt falling off at a symphony concert.

In Finding Tongues in Trees, Barbara Larsen once again channels her personal history, artistry, and technique into a collection of poems which transcend her experience to achieve universality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Larsen
• Release date: Jan 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310249501

Barbara Larsen

Inspired by the beauty of nature and its constant changes, family memories, people Barbara Larsen observes and humorous incidents in her life also find their way into her work.She served as Door County Poet Laureate from 2011 to 2013 and has published six books of poetry. A recipient of the Jade Ring Poetry Prize, Barbara has taught writing classes at The Clearing and Bjorklunden, Lawrence University Seminar Center and has been active in poetry projects in Door County and other areas of the state of Wisconsin.Her latest book, Obits, is a result of her long time interest in obituaries and creating pictures of the people in them in her mind.

Book preview

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything

-William Shakespeare

Finding Tongues in Trees

What a great line!

Shakespeare said it first.

We look at trees

and they almost shout at us:

Look up, reach out,

be flexible in the wind,

dig your roots deep.,

feel the sap running!

Choice at 4:00 a.m.

White phlox heads glow

in the pre-dawn light-

three moons in the garden.

On the trellis, white clematis

illumine the shadows

before sunrise.

Do I return to bed

to dream white dreams,

or

settle at the desk

to fill this page

with white words?

Morning

Grab on! Hold it,

if only for a minute,

for soon it will wriggle away

like a determined toddler

refusing to be held.

But for the briefest of moments

be a part of the aliveness of the lake,

be the lambent light silvering its surface.

Bird

Kreek, kreek, kreek...

that chalk-squeak little bird is at it again!

On and on, rarely a pause,

all day long, day after day.

How does it get any of its bird work done?

What about nest building, feeding young?

What about mating, for heaven's sake!

When I settle on the deck

with a good summer novel, it's there.

When I take out the garbage, it's there.

When I walk down the road, it either

follows me or has a sibling

waiting for me every fifty feet!

All I can say to you, noisy neighbor,

is you don't arouse creativity

with that sound. Keats would have