Fallow Field

"Scott Edward Anderson's poems honor the reality that the things of the world - rye grass, fall warblers, ravens, owls, 'Sargassum drifting/ in a pelagic wave,' lover and sourdough bread - speak to and for our innerness. Here the sense of place is not simply a matter of geography, but of feeling one's way into that sense of becoming that makes one's path clear. The book's fourth section is comprised of poems that beautifully embrace the very human need to join the inner and outer, a territory defined, as the poem titles suggest, by 'Becoming,' 'Shapeshifting,' 'Culitvating,' 'Mapping,' and 'Healing.' Guided since childhood, as the book's closing long poem relates, by nature's teaching, Anderson is devoted to finding the words for what it means to dwell mindfully among others on the wounded earth." - Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of Rope: Poems "I was impressed by Anderson's engagement with nature -- especially the way in which his lyrical lines sketch the profound relationship between humans and their environment." - Jonathan Galassi, author of Left-handed: Poems