What it takes to dazzle us, masters of dazzle,
all of us here together at the top of the world,
is a night without neon or mercury lamps . . .
Poet and naturalist, celebrant and elegist, Deming’s poems pay homage to “every organism’s joy to thrive,” every poem an act of defiance against human cruelty.
New Poetry: Blue Flax & Yellow Mustard Flower
The presence of an animal is a gift. The loss of an animal is a grief. To share such feelings through poetry is to create a community of caring for the creatures that accompany us on Earth.
New Anthology: The Gift of Animals
The man gathers rope every summer
off the stone beaches of the North.
There is no sand in this place
where the Labrador Current runs
like an artery through the body of the Atlantic,
channeling particles that once were glacial ice
and now are molecules making
not one promise to anyone.
It's beautiful to think that trees have consciousness,
can feel their wood thicken, and, as the sun migrates
south, how the limbs redirect their reaching,
effortless and slow, their movement visible only in the form.
Rocks have the oldest knowledge on earth, rivers have
the oldest names and determine where the cities shall be built
and what shall be their shapes.
Blue Flax & Yellow Mustard FlowerA Woven World, Red Hen Press, 2025
“Alison Hawthorne Deming is not a poet for whom environmental writing is merely a subject or an aspect of her brand. For this true poet, nature is nothing less than a beyond-one’s-own-life existential presence.”
—David Baker, Whale Fall
– To request an appearance, contact Christie Hinrichs at christie@authorsunbound.com, or (541) 797-2217. View my speaker profile here.
