Distributed for Tupelo Press
The Writes of Spring
A celebration of and meditation on spring by the leading poets of our time, accompanied by striking nature photography.
The Writes of Spring is a landmark celebration of the season of renewal, bringing together fifty-five original, previously unpublished poems written especially for this anthology by many of today’s most accomplished poets, including Rodrigo Toscano, Luisa A. Igloria, Kelle Groom, J. Mae Barizo, and George Looney, alongside an exceptional gathering of established and emerging voices. From intimate meditations on birdsong, blossoms, weather, memory, and desire to luminous explorations of grief, history, climate, family, and the fragile resilience of hope, these poems reveal spring not simply as a season but as an enduring human impulse: the perennial return of beauty, imagination, and possibility even in uncertain times. Rather than collecting familiar classics, The Writes of Spring offers readers an entirely fresh encounter with the season through poems appearing here for the first time.
Throughout the volume, two dozen luminous color photographs by noted landscape photographer Jeffrey Levine accompany the poems in quiet conversation. Sweeping landscapes, intimate botanical studies, rivers, forests, fields, and blossoms deepen the anthology’s celebration of the natural world while inviting readers into moments of sustained attention and delight. Elegantly produced and richly illustrated, The Writes of Spring is at once a distinguished literary anthology and a work of visual art—a volume to return to with each year’s first thaw, to cherish throughout the seasons, and to remember that poetry remains one of our deepest ways of inhabiting the living world.
Table of Contents
I. Thresholds
1. Notebook: From a Spring Chronicle—Arthur Solway
2. How Spring Works—Dawn McGuire
3. Vernal Equinox at MacDowell—Olga Maslova
4. A Bard in Mud Season—Rosemary Herbert
5. Spring Breeze— Rodrigo Toscano
6. Sitting on the Patio Thinking about James Wright in His Hammock—Janet Ruth
II. Attention
7. Clover—Kelle Groom
8. Tulip Tree—Eva Hooker
9. Herbarium: Agapanthus “Mood Indigo”—Lisa Rosenberg
10. Herbarium: Pineapple Weed—Lisa Rosenberg
11. Yellow—Merridawn Duckler
12. Jerink—Lisa Majaj
III. Witness & Place
13. Phenomenology—Sara Dudo
14. Nymphaea Odorata—Derek Jon Dickinson
15. Playa Santa Marianita: Coastal Desert Cacophony—Anne Hampford
16. Baseball at Meiji Jingu Stadium—Eivind Olsen
17. On a late spring day in Tokyo, maybe—Patricia Aya Williams
IV. Counter-Pastoral
18. Super—Amanda Turner
19. Spoke—Emma De Lisle
20. The First Spring—Emma De Lisle
21. He Deposed the Moon—Jenny Grassl
22. The Bull of Heaven—Melissa Peters
V. Reckoning
23. Antipastoral—J. Mae Barizo
24. Koresh’s Disciple (Estero, Florida: April, 1903)—Jill Allen
25. If Not Winter, No Pain—Noel Munguia-Moreno
26. Grey Trembler—Michele Randall
27. After Tu BiShvat—Sharon Coleman
VI. Ritual
28. Deceptive Pastoral—George Looney
29. Funeral in Early Spring—Michael Chitwood
30. Vespers—John Glowney
31. The Orchardist Keeps Balance—Benjamiin S. Grossberg
32. Preparing the Incense—Cathlin Noonan
33. Birkat Hamazon—Leah Falk
34. Ode to the Serviceberry—Luisa A. Igloria
VII. Bloom
35. Blooming Season—Hannah Smith
36. Milk House—Kelly Gray
37. Reading Rabbits—Charlene Fix
38. Springtime at the Erie Canal—Kathleen Winter
VIII. Ceremony & Continuity
39. While Weighing Whether to Retire—Kathy O’Fallon
40. Strawberries & Honey—Stephen Hitchcock
41. Bouillabaisse—George Burns
42. Epithalamion—Melissa McKinstry
43. Epithalamion at the Edge of the Lake—Kristina Erny
44. Languor—Sarah Maclay
IX. Afterimage / Late Spring
45. On Mother’s Day, my mother wants—Marjorie Maddox
46. Last Late-Blooming White Lilac—Christina Pugh
47. Then Liz mails me a tiny painting from Maine to prop on my desk—Melissa McKinstry
48. or what if—Lisa Gluskin Stonestreet
49. The Farmer Daydreams in 2175—David Eileen
50. trees on the street in Ohio where I grew up—Martha Ronk