Elizabeth Herron is the current Sonoma County Poet Laureate. (For another nine days, at any rate! On the 18th, we shall place a crown of laurels on the head of the newly named Laureate, Dave Seter.)
Herron brings the natural world, and our effect on it, into brilliant focus. While serving as Poet Laureate for the last two years, she has led The Being Brave Poetry Project, which she describes beautifully on her web site. Here's just a tidbit of what she has to say:
Aldo Leopold, father of the modern environmental writing, famously observed we take care of what we feel affection for, and Toni Morrison says that “Beauty makes the unbearable bearable.” My own poetry is always an effort to find the beauty that compels affection, even when the subject is otherwise unbearable. We want our hearts awakened, and poetry is about the heart. In the Being Brave Poetry Project, we hear the heart speak.
The Stones, the Dark Earth is one of those books that seems very small, but whose impact is great. A lovely chapbook, and just what I needed on a day when I had a limited amount of time in which to read.
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