Praise
With stunning imagery and gentle, meditative music, Richmond conjures a sense of sacred wildness in all things. In a world as endangered by meanness and indifference as ours, no lesson seems more important. --Fred Marchant, Said Not Said
Transformation--or to be more precise, transfiguration--is at the heart of Susan Edwards Richmond's work: person into creature, creature into god. So we are invited to consider how intertwined our lives are with the world around and inside us. –Lawrence Raab, Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts
In these subtle, thoughtful poems, Susan Edwards Richmond invites readers to dive into mystery and the unknown. . . As Richmond follows the spirits around her, she enables readers to experience their presence as well. – Elizabeth Lund, reviewer
Nature, spirits, and metamorphoses are the common threads that run through this collection and there’s a quality of nature staring right back at us that lends it power as well.... If you’re the sort of person who takes nature for granted, or only sees it in scientific terms, Richmond is not a poet for you. For her, as for the ancients, nature is teaming with stories and spiritual energy that we can tap into for our entertainment and edification. For her, human beings are not detached from nature, but inextricably bound up with it.... In Richmond’s hands, it’s hard to tell which is more marvelous, stories of humans dramatically entwined with nature or simple, astute observations of the natural world we encounter every day. –Lawrence Kessenich, The Somerville [MA] Times Review May 17, 2017 (Read full review at http://www.thesomervilletimes.com/archives/76003.)
Fox Run
Smoothly, galloping, crossing
the street lightly, no one else out, no one
to see, he is my fox, coming
for me, and I move from window to door
to window to see him through, around
the brush pile, over
the stone wall, each frame
diminishing him.
I follow the gold, alive, stirring
me with his wildness, casual
as a dog, as though he belonged, as though
he would stay if I called to him,
if I sat still. But he keeps
running, a needle’s swift threading of my heart,
the thrill, feet barely touching, stitching
together the bare places,
moss and sand. But once
he acknowledged me with deep
fox eyes, quivering black
mustache of mouth. I was out
on the porch and froze, not
breathing. For a moment, I was
fox, too, worthy
to run with him. If only I didn’t move.