Nature Speaks: Art & Poetry for the Earth

by Deborah Kennedy

Overview

Poetry and art to heal ourselves and the Earth

In Nature Speaks, Deborah Kennedy’s captivating poetry and illustrations bring to life the profound bond between ourselves and the larger natural world. Kennedy focuses on the ecological themes of our time, infusing art and science with insight and passion. Her powerful poetry and earth-toned ink illustrations feature the elegance of birds and strength of redwood trees, appealing to the eye, the mind, and the heart. Nature Speaks invites us to listen to the earth—to appreciate nature’s grace, complexity, and vigor—as we move toward pathways for healing ourselves and the earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781940468464
Publisher:	White Cloud Press
Publication date:	11/01/2016
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

An artist and poet, Deborah Kennedy's work has exhibited in the United States and Europe. Her art appeared on The Berlin Wall shortly before it was torn down and was an inspiration to thousands who witnessed art at the service of social change. She lives in San Jose, CA.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xi

Foreword xiii

Introduction 1

Living Inside the Circle: Every Part Wedded to the Whole 5

Coevolulion 7

Web of Life 11

Double Vision 15

Sign language 19

Bone Shadows 23

Rough-legged Hawk 27

Sweet Water to Salt 31

Careless Hands: Wreaking and Reaping 35

Teeming 37

Quorum Sensing 41

Gilt Frames 45

Midnight Garden 49

Paper Wings 53

Vacation Apocalypse 57

Hole Minus Hole 61

La Femme Savant 65

Beautiful Poisons: Bearing the Burden 69

Secrets 71

The Return of Bona Dea 75

Breasts 79

The Cure 83

Chalice 87

Last Desperate Press 91

DNA Rules 95

Revealing Relationships: Healing Ourselves and Our Home 99

More than Light 101

Raise Our Voices 105

The Beaten Path 109

Two Halves of the Story 113

Native 117

Metronome 121

White Violets 125

Redwoods 129

Fate of my Son 133

Regeneration Ruckus 137

References 141

Environmental Organizations and Resources 149

Editorial Reviews

Each of the elegant poems in Nature Speaks provide a thoughtful pathway through the dense forest of cultural and ecological challenges we face as a species. Deborah Kennedy shows us how to artistically navigate our way with her beauty-making of words and images as we strive to live in harmony with Nature in these most critical of times. Stunning! –Osprey Orielle Lake, sculptor, founder and president of Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus, author of Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature

Nature Speaks offers us the vast and infinite world, our history, our earth, both gorgeous and dying. To read Deborah Kennedy's Nature Speaks is like waking up from a dream to find that someone around us is wide awake. “What hole is deep enough to throw away the whole world?” the author asks in a searing poem, followed by a rich, echoing drawing. The art following each poem has a science illustrator’s detail and a visionary artist’s dream. In this work we find Enlightenment women, hawk moths, ancient goddesses, acorns, millions of prairie bison, melting sea ice, watersheds, pollinators, mass extinctions, plastics, breast milk, the solar system, egrets, turtle eggs, ancient footprints, tule grass, redwoods. Nature Speaks looks at the whole beautiful world, and refuses to look away from its suffering. “Dare to think,” we are reminded, and after reading this book, we do. – Carolyn Brigit Flynn, author of Communion: Poems in Praise of the Sacred Earth

From the Publisher