Lotus Earth on Fire by Lynn Axelrod

Lynn Axelrod‘s deeply intelligent and generous collection, Lotus Earth on Fire, serves as an unflinching witness to the hungry and the homeless, to floods, fires, and the untold injustices of man to man. But we are guided through these seasons and tides–of the Earth and individual lives–by a naturalist’s eye and heart. In the end this wide-ranging, multi-layered gathering of “weather-beaten prayers” ushers us into the “greening-joy” of being alive together. As the poet proclaims in the book’s final poem: “This will be our practice,/ to celebrate reconnecting/ & impermanence…”

–Prartho Sereno, author of Indian Rope Trick & Founder of The Poetic Pilgrimage: Poem-Making as Spiritual Practice

Lynn Axelrod’s talent for rendering the feeling of experience in Lotus Earth on Fire intersects with her ability to create lines with a metaphorical reality all their own. With images such as “Pop keeps hands busy across the page / as synapses…swing messages / across gaps like trapeze artists,” (“After the Diagnosis”); “Broken voices reach us on ether / … / still ninety-eight point six but choked / like a ghost with fever (“They Say Fire is a Metaphor”); and “High-stepping New Mexico Northern Jacana / totes his chick underwing to good insect sites” (“Bird Watching”), readers will be captivated and moved by this collection for many years to come.

–Terry Lucas, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Marin County, California