dandelion

by Heather Swan

In beautifully lyrical language, Heather Swan evokes both the broken human world of self-inflicted damage (pesticides, herbicides, "the noise of industry and ego") and the healing natural world of replenishment and repair (rock, bird, water, animal, plant, air). If, for Swan, the human body is "a desert drilled for petroleum," "a trout stream dying," "a splinter pulled from a tree," it is also "an astral body," "a celestial body," "a body of light." Whether lamenting the death of a beloved father or the loss of an endangered species; meditating speculatively on the post-apocalyptic thoughts of Noah's wife; riffing on the likes of Kermit the Frog, Wile E. Coyote, or Piglet and Winnie the Pooh; or simply delighting in the freshness and vividness of experience, Swan illuminates the depths of our daily lives. For a reader, gifted with such honest, clear-eyed, evocative and restorative poems as these, there is "Nothing left to say but, / thank you./ Thank you." -Ron Wallace, For a Limited Time Only

Genres: Poetry

106 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2023

Reviews

[CJ Hylton]

I found this book at a small bookstore in the Outer banks. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and there were many poems I marked down as favorites. The themes of environmentalism were eye opening and well executed, definitely the work of a talented poet. It was my surprise then to find how little reviews the book has! I don’t write many reviews myself, but I’m writing this one in the hopes that it’ll convince more people to check it out. I’ll definitely be reading more from Swan!

[Rebecca Jamieson]

In these fiercely intimate poems steeped in joy and grief, Heather Swan invites us to feel a deeply embodied connection to the natural world. With lyricism and tenseness, Swan evokes the pain of a pig in a factory farm or the melting of a glacier as keenly as a child’s delight in discovering the natural world for the first time. A book I savored and will return to savor again.

[Tate Geiger]

Heather gave me this book as a gift, and it was delightful to read! Her poems manage to be honest and simple while having a deeply artful construction.