Firekeeper

“A celebratory voice in American poetry; her descriptions of the physical world are at once rapturous and visionary; while other poets moan, she soars and sings.”

“If angels were to agree upon a language to describe creation, a tone of voice and a point of view that would adequately celebrate the divine, these would be the poems they would write. If this is not poetry in service to humanity, I do not know what is.”

“Firekeeper is poetry with a deep knowledge of the natural sciences, a profound spiritualism; it is poetry that seeks to commune with the reader, that is more concerned with being understood than with being formally innovative. But best of all, it is poetry that takes delight in exploring the natural world for its own intrinsic values. Simply put, after reading the poetry of Pattiann Rogers, the world is suddenly a much larger place.”

“An extraordinary reading experience … One can fault Pattiann Rogers’s poems only for being too constantly exuberant, fanciful and joyous… . While displaying her perpetually curious intelligence at play, Rogers shows her virtuosity—to marvelous effect—in exploring sensory perception.”

“As one of the most delicate and spiritual of nature writers, Pattiann Rogers has observed how the earth changes and shapes the lives of individuals willing to learn from it. Her poems demand close reading as they unfold, layer upon layer, and embrace the reader into the natural cycles of life.”

“While Pattiann Rogers’s vision is firmly rooted in nature, it would be reductive to call her a nature poet; her poems are gestures of a spirit that experiences the act of observation as religious, a ritual as vital as eating or drawing breath.”

“If you don’t read poetry, read Pattiann Rogers—and then you will. I love these sparkling, burrowing poems. They know no border between eroticism and death, sheer whimsy and utter gravity, the translucent spirit and the naked body, the sky and the everloving soil.”