Thistle: Poems

by Melissa Kwasny

These thirty-seven poems are eccentric in the true meaning of the word off-center. Their titles, bearing the names of weeds, flowers, herbs, trees, are merely points of departure. How hard can it be," the poet asks, "to lie down in the green / mussed bed of the senses... In clover." Whether it's clover or rue, aspen or moss, the reader is invited into that rumpled but rich bed." --Maxine Kumin

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Melissa Kwasny is the author of the acclaimed poetry collections The Nine Senses, Reading Novalis in Montana, The Archival Birds, and Thistle, which won the Idaho Prize in 2006. She is also the author of Pictograph: Poems, published in 2015.

Kwasny is the recipient of the Poetry Society of America's 2009 Cecil Hemley Award, as well as the 2009 Alice Fay di Castognola Award for a work in progress, the Montana Art Council's 2010 Artist's Innovation Award, and residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hedgebrook, and the Headlands Center for the Arts. She has taught as Visiting Writer at both the undergraduate and graduate level, including at the University of Wyoming, Eastern Washington University/Inland Pacific Center for Writers, and as the Richard Hugo Visiting Poet at the University of Montana. Relevant to her teaching for Lesley University, which she has done since 1999, she was a poet in the schools in grades K-12 public schools, mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area for nine years.

Kwasny was born in Indiana and earned an MFA from the University of Montana. She lives outside of Jefferson City, Montana, in the Elkhorn Mountains.

Reviews

[Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a book of poems that cuts into very dark subject matter, Melissa Kwasny choice of titles might seem light, but every poem insists that the reader take the weed more seriously– sees the reason it grows the way it does and what it cures–all the while telling a very human narrative about the world and about being a woman.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection, chosen by Christopher Howell (Light's Ladder) for the Idaho Prize, is one of the most masterful books I've read in years.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the first section bog you down. There are many more treasures of the plant world and Kwasny's very human heart to come--I think the book got better with each poem.