Leaning toward Light: Poems for Gardens & the Hands That Tend Them

by Tess Taylor, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Foreword by)

Overview

This beautiful poetry anthology offers a warm, inviting selection of poems from a wide range of voices that speak to the collective urge to grow, tend, and heal—an evocative celebration of our connection to the green world.

Much like reading a good poem, caring for plants brings comfort, solace, and joy to many. In this new poetry anthology, Leaning toward Light, acclaimed poet and avid gardener Tess Taylor brings together a diverse range of contemporary voices to offer poems that celebrate that joyful connection to the natural world. Several of the most well-known contemporary writers, as well as some of poetry’s exciting rising stars, contribute to this collection including Ross Gay, Jericho Brown, Mark Doty, Jane Hirshfield, Ada Limón, Danusha Laméris, Naomi Shihab Nye, Garrett Hongo, Ellen Bass, and James Crews. A foreword by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, reflective pauses and personal recipes from some of the contributing poets, along with original, whimsical illustrations by Melissa Castrillon, and a ribbon bookmark complete this stunning, hardcover gift format. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635865806
Publisher:	Storey Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	08/29/2023
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Tess Taylor, an avid gardener, is the author of five acclaimed collections of poetry including Work & Days, which was named one of the 10 best books of poetry of 2016 by the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Times Literary Supplement, CNN, and the New York Times. Taylor has been Distinguished Fulbright US Scholar at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Queen’s University in Northern Ireland, and the Anne Spencer Poet-in-Residence at Randolph College. She has also served as on-air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered for over a decade. Taylor lives in El Cerrito, California, where she tends to fruit trees and backyard chickens. 

Table of Contents

Foreword: The Whole World, a Garden, Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Gardening in Public, Tess Taylor
A Small Needful Fact, Ross Gay

Planting & Sprouting
Becoming New & New Becoming, Ashley M. Jones
From Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer, Wendell Berry
Photosynthesis, Ashley M. Jones
Greenbriar Lane, Diana Marie Delgado
Gardening, Cole Swensen
Three Sunflower Seeds, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Spring (a conversation), Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Planting Inkberry Hollies During the Pandemic, Lauren Moseley
Trapeze, Elise Paschen
What Regenerates in a Household, Laura Villareal
Earth, Cleopatra Mathis
Autumn Blooming Cherry, Andy Eaton
Foreday in the Morning, Jericho Brown

Weeding & Wilding
In Praise of Strong Seedlings, Jane Hirshfield
Weed, Lia Purpura
Stained Glass, Jack Johnson
Deep Lane, Mark Doty
from Tending, Jenny Xie
Golden Poppy, Dana Levin
Considering the Snail, Thom Gunn
Feeding the Worms, Danusha Lameris
Spring Planting, Victoria Chang
The Contract, Jane Hirshfield
Now the Artichokes, Tess Taylor
Thistle, Maw Shein Win
Fennel, Thom Gunn
Dear Damselfly, Brynn Saito

Growing & Tending
Tendrils of Life & Community, Ann Fisher-Wirth
Trying, Ada Limon
from Separation Anxiety, Janice Lee
Haecceitas, Ann Fisher-Wirth
Palm Sunday, Mariana Goycoechea
Photosynthesis: (Chinaka Hodge Hosts a Block Party), Alan Chazaro
Mara Mara, Garden Child, Claudia Monpere
Song of the Gourd, C.D. Wright
Gift, Czeslaw Milosz
Poem Beginning with a Line from Wordsworth, Brian Simoneau
In the Dark, Cynthia Roth
Closing In, Jason Myers
Touch Me, Stanley Kunitz

Being & Waiting
Reaching Past the Human, Brenda Hillman
Levitation, Robert Haas
Love Poem with Horticulture and Anxiety, Stephanie Burt
Loveliest of Trees, A.E. Housman
Mississippi Invocation, Ann Fisher-Wirth
Quickening, Jacqueline Kolosov
All else is pale echo, dear, Chiyuma Elliott
from Just Tell Them No, Forrest Gander
To the Grackle, Kirun Kapur
Oasis, Arthur Sze
Pocket Garden in the City, David Baker
The Practice of Talking to Plants, Brenda Hillman
Insects with Long Childhoods, Hannah Fries
Gardeners' World, or What I Did During the Plague, Cynthia White

Grieving & Release
Grief & Sustenance, Danusha Lameris
Working in the Garden, I Think of My Son, Danusha Lameris
After Her Funeral, I Became an Environmentalist, Ilya Kaminsky
After All, Anna V. Q. Ross
Invasive, Ada Limon
Metaphor of America as This Homegrown Painted Lady Chrysalis, Camille T. Dungy
Palestine Vine, Naomi Shihab Nye
The Tulips of Tehran, Sholeh Wolpe
Unending, Susan Nguyen
Aloe, Mary Jo Salter
My Mother Is a Garden, Ruben Quesada
from Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
Laurelhurst, David Biespiel

Harvest & Feeding
Of Food & Physical Hours, Ellen Bass
Apricot, Deborah Slicer
Speed and Perfection, Jane Hirshfield
Black Cherries, W. S. Merwin
More, James Crews
Abundant Blessings, James Crews
Ode to the First Peach, Ellen Bass
Fruit, Katie Peterson
After the Farmers Market, I Make a Salade Nicoise, Keetje Kuipers
Sous-Chef, Ellen Bass
Interview with the Pear Tree, Genine Lentine
August, Federico Garcia Lorca
To Autumn, John Keats
Green Tomatoes in Fire Season, Tess Taylor
cutting greens, Lucille Clifton
Who Among You Knows the Essence of Garlic? Garrett Hongo
Tasting Home, Garrett Hongo
Garlic, Matt Rader
Carrot, Leah Naomi Green
Turnip Ode, Tess Taylor

Wintering & Turning Again
Holding the Season in Our Hands, January Gill O'Neil
Mind Is Snow, Patty Crane
Season Due, Rosanna Warren
In the Community Garden, Mark Doty
Daffodils, Michelle Gillett
Sunday, Patty Crane
November, Remembering Voltaire, Jane Hirshfield
On the Twelfth of March, Cleopatra Mathis
Wild Oregano, January Gill O'Neil
The Garden, Sophie Cabot Black
Moon Garden, Derek Sheffield
To Every Thing There Is a Season, Ecclesiastes 3.1-8
Ghost Eden, Erika Meitner

Contributors
Credits
Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

“Leaning toward the Light is an exceptionally pretty poetry collection.”—The Washington Post

“A rich and varied collection.”—The Boston Globe

“After a summer rife with extreme weather events … readers could use a reminder that a more caring relationship with Earth is possible. They will find it in Leaning toward Light.”—Poets & Writers

“This collection brings together many of my favorite writers to celebrate the limitless offerings of nature; wandering through its pages feels like taking a long stroll through a beautiful garden.”—Alice Waters, chef, author, food activist, and founder of Chez Panisse and the Edible Schoolyard Project

“Among the many things to love about this beautiful anthology is that it reminds us that gardening  is a gathering practice, a practice of gathering, and the more we do it together—with collaborators human, critterly, fungal, floral, meteorological, cosmic, unborn, living, living now as soil, etc.—the better, by which I mean the more lovingly, the more belovingly, the more truly, we do it.”—Ross Gay, author of Inciting Joy and The Book of Delights

“It’s thrilling to see in these pages a reflection of the world I want to live in.”—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of the New York Times bestseller World of Wonders, from the foreword

“As Aimee Nezhukamatathil reminds us in the delightful and informative foreword to this bountiful collection, the word anthology means a gathering of flowers. How perfect is this bouquet! Diverse and delightful. At turns, tender and tough. I'm sure I'll be reading the poems gathered in this anthology for years to come.”—Camille T. Dungy, author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden

“Leaning toward Light” is both a loving tribute to the natural world and a recognition of the profound need for the human spirit to be connected to the gardens of the world if we are to thrive. The artwork and recipes makes this gathering of poems even more delicious.”—Florencia Ramirez, author of Eat Less Water: The Solution to Worldwide Water Shortages is in our Kitchens

“I’m reminded that in 1629 John Parkinson wrote an herbal, or plant compendium, entitled  “In Sole, Paradisus Terrestris: “a sunny garden of earthly pleasures.” What an apt phrase for Taylor’s fruitful, rich, and earthy book.”—Peter J. Hatch, Gardener, Historian, Emeritus Director of Gardens and Grounds, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

“A gorgeous book in both content and as an artful object, this collection of garden poems is a necessary addition to any cultivator’s library.” —Orion Magazine

From the Publisher