Poets and Poems: Emily Bright and “This Ground Beneath Our Feet”

As I read Emily Bright’s new collection of poetry, it was the word “ground” in the title that kept coming to mind. “Ground” has a double meaning. It can be the physical ground we stand and walk upon and that our homes occupy, and it can be the historical, genealogical, emotional, psychological, and social realities that gives shape to and hold our lives in place. While This Ground Beneath Our Feet includes both, it is the second kind that Bright really focuses on.  

The collection, appropriately enough, uses the metaphor of a growing tree to organize the poems into four sections. The poems of “Roots” draw from her family history – colonists traveling to a new land, the ocean passage itself, and clearing the land in their new homes. The poems of “Ground” move to both the physical landscape as well what the land produces. These are not confined solely to space; one poem describes interplanetary space travel but still manages to be about ground. The poems of “Branches” move closer to her own contemporary life, and “Seeds” describes not only scenes of childhood but also cultural seeds, like reading poetry in a prison environment.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Puzzle of Minor Poetry – Robert Shaw at Portico Quarterly.

 

“Telling the Bees,” poem by Lizette Woodwoth Reese – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Spring-tine, night-time, rabbits and raccoons – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“The King Wavers,” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“Clerihews,” poem by E.C. Bentley – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Happy Birthday Every Day Poems – Celebrating 15 Years! – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.