Blooms of the Berry

Swallows, wild roses, fern and running water fill Madison Julius Cawein's poems with the movement and sound of woodland life. In the opening pieces, a secluded hollow holds both natural beauty and personal grief, while a walk through a bleak March wood becomes an occasion to consider patience and loss. The poems move between closely observed plants and birds and imagined presences drawn from myth, giving the landscape human moods and hidden company.

The collection's three sections lead from fields and woods into mythic seas and the gardens of Falerina. Its contents include poems named for Persephone, Demeter and other legendary figures, alongside seasonal pieces and scenes associated with the Ohio. In the autumn verses, the season takes human form among streams, fallen leaves and a ruined mill. Readers interested in nineteenth-century American nature poetry will find richly patterned rhymes, elaborate sensory description and an enduring attention to the link between place and feeling.