Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Poets and Poems: Michelle Menting and “Leaves Surface Like Skin”


Lichen sticking to the grooves of tree bark. Pine needles surrounding a house embedded in the woods. A pale, yellow flower grazing the finger of a young man leaving for war. Imagining life as a tardigrade, or “little water bear.” Bramble-scrawled oak trees. Burial mounds so natural they seem part of the landscape.

Nature and geography offer a wealth of images and metaphors for poetry, and poet Michelle Menting drinks deeply from that source in her new collection, Leaves Surface Like Skin. The 46 poems of the collection are filled with nature’s images, but filled in a distinct way. Menting uses nature, geography, landscape, and the seasons to probe and push against the human condition. This is not so much nature poetry as it is nature poetry in the service of understanding one’s self and the people surrounding you.


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

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