
Todd Davis
Todd Davis, winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, teaches
creative writing, environmental studies, and American literature at
Penn State University's Altoona College. His poems have been
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Some Heaven
Todd Davis
"...a fine, rare poet." - Jim
Harrison Illusion We've been burning
prairie grasses along the highway today, offering the
illusion of control, as if the moving arms of fire could
be choreographed. This Morning the rains
start to clear in the west, and as the sun begins to rise,
it is in the west that the light first appears. Back to
the east, the sky remains dark while the rain continues to
fall, as if the earth had changed its mind, turned and
walked the other way. First Snow, after September
11th Last night the wind came strong from the north,
brought black walnut and maple limbs back to earth—fence
row cluttered in despair. Across the field a crow beats
his wings against heavy clouds.
Todd Davis writes poems that are spare yet eloquent,
poems
with an appealing simplicity that belies their insight and
consequence. They are rooted in the firmament of nature's frequently
bruised bounty, yet grounded by our all-too-human experiences on
this
planet, living on a land that we so often treat with contempt or
blunder through blindly. With the eye of a naturalist and the heart-
wisdom of a sage, Davis reveals scenes of our lives that we might
have otherwise missed. His poems are like the best kind of snapshot;
they show us the details that deserve more attention, from a five-
year-old's joy in sitting on Dad’s lap and "driving" the family car
or standing on a chair to help Mom make Jell-O, to the devastation
of
drought on farmland or the extraordinary lushness of an ordinary
backyard. Because Davis holds up these prose-photos and urges us to
take another look, we suddenly experience their profundity and
comprehend their meaning. With disarming directness, he connects
nature to family, landscape to community, and earth to faith.
Some Heaven brings together more than 100
Davis poems. Most are concise; all are approachable. In fact, they
pull readers in, stirring our senses, tickling our memories. Here
are
poems about Amish gardens, changing seasons, friends at school,
tractors, and deer. Davis urges us to see—not to take a quick look,
but to really see—frost on goldenrods, the qualities of dirt, the
color of air. Underneath, of course, these are poems about universal
themes: love, loss, life, death; but in Davis's skilled hands, they
appear to us to be more akin to wild strawberries growing on a rock
wall or apples discovered in an abandoned orchard: something fresh,
unexpected, and thankfully welcomed.
Reviews
"Some Heaven is a
considerable book of poems.
Many poets feel that they
know the natural world, but
Todd Davis has absorbed this
world fully into his heart
and mind. He is a fine, rare
poet."
—Jim Harrison, author
of The Shape of the
Journey: New and Collected
Poems and The Woman
Lit by Fireflies
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Paperback Edition:
World Rights
146 pp., 6 " x 9 ", January
2007 paper, $19.95
0-87013-800-6 978-0-87013-800-3
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