This Planet Neighborhood (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781639809998)

This Planet Neighborhood is a ride - a dappled-wave-at sundown kind of ride! Moody, meditative, tender are the poems, their "vagaries of light," the deft spill of their shadows. There is lyric, sometimes wry authority. Through Denby's generous imagination, we are in rich communion with "Earth's every survival," "the bodiless whisper / of a white wave." Through her music, we find the possibility of connection, "a flicker of yes, " and the urgency of love, reminding us of "the basic geography of you and me." Jaywalkers, memory's trees, Heathcliff, ocean, Ruth Stone, husband-to-be, Jacaranda, musicians, Einstein, field flowers, dogs and dogs and dogs populate this luminous Neighborhood. Where do we find ourselves on the Planet? We find ourselves in "the stream / pulsing on sunlit stones." How beautiful this book is to me. How essential!

-Alessandra Lynch, author, Wish Ave and Daylily Called It a Dangerous Moment

To read Priscilla Denby's This Planet Neighborhood is to regain faith in the power of contemporary poetry. Denby guides us through a world rich with everyday wonder, where the sun comes with "good credentials," coyotes are ready to engage with us, and "Charity lives in Vermont and has no bones." With rich imagery and generous observations about the natural world and human relationships, she explores the interplay of past and present in her "neighborhood of infinite promise." Priscilla is a poet who holds secrets about our place on this planet and of how small acts of observation can transform us. Read her. You'll find more than "enough music to dance by."

-Carlos Zacarias Gomez, author, Poems for Lovers and Midnight Readers and Poems, Stories & Tales: Other Times, Other Places

True to its title, This Planet Neighborhood articulates connections between macro and micro, between the cosmic and the close up. The poems are at once ecological, sociological, cosmological, and very down to earth. "Meadow" has been deleted "from the children's / dictionary, in favor of broadband, blog, / sidebar and cut and paste." What do we lose when we lose a word? A connection that sustains in both directions. Denby is deeply woven with the natural world, saying of herself, "I'm not rich, though / I have deserts to spare, / but I have a jungle heart, / lush enough for loving." Thus, she carries vast realms of earth. She knows herself by their realities. The concern for all of us and all the living systems we're a part of - did I mention history? mythology? - is at the heart of Denby's work. We need her vision.

-George Ella Lyon, author, Back to the Light; Kentucky Poet Laureate, 2015-16


Author: Priscilla Denby
ISBN-10: 1639809996
ISBN-13: 9781639809998
Publisher: Kelsay Books
Language: English
Published: 05/15/2025
Pages: 92
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.22d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/0001