The Jade Bower: New and Selected Poems

A compelling and rare treat, The Jade Bower: New and Selected Poems by award-winning poet Carol Leavitt Altieri is a pendulum that swings between the brevity and misfortune of the natural world. A sheer and illuminating beauty is balanced on the long legs of poetics as the poet conveys the necessities of art and life in this collection that includes nearly ninety environmental humanistic poems. Broken into three sections, poems such as “Jesus Christ Lizards,” “Viewing Giant Tortoises at Galapagos,” “In Brazil’s Rainforest Tribal Chief Marimo Fights Loggers” and “Wild Horses of Smoke Creek Desert,” prove evocative with an incredible immediacy and passion. Often sublime, never subtle, these poems are imagistic, haunting and, ultimately, hopeful. As the poet moves through the perils of environmental lust and abuse, she offers a view of the perfect, unblemished earth that readers will revel and celebrate.