Wild Gardens
Sara's Debut Poetry Collection Is Out Now!
Wild Gardens features 46 poems, some of which you may recognize if you've read my work before; and I'm so, SO happy that this book is finally making its way into the world! If you've enjoyed reading poetry by Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil, you'll probably like what you'll find in this book.
Here's the synopsis:
"In her inspiring and lyrical debut poetry collection, Sara Letourneau looks at our world and one’s life experiences with empathy and wide-open eyes. The book allows us to inhabit terrain that is physical—the shores of Cape Cod, the lava fields of Iceland, parks in Massachusetts and New York City—and emotional. Poems about grief, love, and mental health coexist with poems about travel, spirituality, and the natural world like flowers in a nursery. Wild Gardens shows us how to live with wonder, perceptiveness, and gratitude for the extraordinary and the everyday."
Header image and cover art photo courtesy of Mike Sleeper
Readings and other events are being confirmed for Wild Gardens, so head over to the Events page for more details!
Get Your Copy of Wild Gardens Today
Want a Sneak Peek? Read These Poems You'll Find in Wild Gardens
"Elegy for Snaefellsjokull Glacier" (first published in Nixes Mate Review, Summer/Fall 2023)
“Flowers at a Funeral” (first published in Mass Poetry's Hard Work of Hope, November 2021)
“How to Color a Mandala” (first published in Amethyst Review, December 2020)
“No Darkness Here (An Ode to Metal Music)" (first published in Golden Walkman Magazine, December 2019; reprinted in Full Mood Mag, December 2022)
“An Ode to Icelandic Tap Water" (first published in Aromatica Poetica, May 2021)
“Osprey at Bass River” (first published in Canary, Winter 2018 / 2019)
“Peach Pie Ice Cream Haibun” (first published in Aromatica Poetica, May 2021)
"Self-Portrait of the Poet, Looking at a Photo of Herself" (first published in Living Crue, Spring 2022)
What Other Poets Have Said About Wild Gardens
If you were to cross the poetry of Ursula K. Le Guin and that of Mary Oliver, you might very well get Sara Letourneau’s Wild Gardens. These poems posses the type of exquisite experience of nature that Oliver offers, laced through and through with a bravery that marks Le Guin’s verse at its best. Letourneau not only walks through the world; she strides across it with an insistence that beauty is strength and strength (especially hers) is beautiful.
Wayne-Daniel Berard
Author of How Air Is and Art of Enlightenment, among others
Sara Letourneau’s poems express a sensibility driven by widening rings of empathy. Metalhead in a sundress, she reveals her identification with Others, ranging from Cape Cod as a conscious entity, to a predatory osprey, a dying glacier, Icelandic tap water, even a drop of frankincense oil. Darkness, “the toxins and dead cells of self,” grief, a personal implosion in the night – all these are present as well. But in a world “bursting with contradiction,” compassion appears in the most unexpected places, like an anonymous love note found at a gas pump. Sympathetic vibrations greet us everywhere: wander into these Wild Gardens yourself!
David P. Miller
Author of Bend in the Stair and Sprawled Asleep
Wild Gardens is populated by intimate poems of address. To readers, yes, but also to the “wolf’s cry” of metal music, to a great egret in Central Park, to Icelandic tap water, to a Tibetan singing bowl. And sometimes they inhabit, speaking as a North Atlantic right whale or frankincense oil. These are poems of learning to love one’s self amidst the “violent vigilance” of anxiety, pandemic, environmental concern, and loss. Despite diminishing glaciers and Earth swallowing its own rivers, “somehow grief fails to blind me,” Sara Letourneau writes, reintroducing us to a world that remains “too candescent / to know how to sleep.”
Rebecca Hart Olander
Author of Uncertain Acrobats
Sara Letourneau’s poetry is an immersive experience. The words transport you to another realm – whether to a specific place, time, or even a Tibetan singing bowl. Each poem is a paean to the essence of some part of our existence. The language is exquisite, making the reading experience of Wild Gardens an absolute joy. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Robert Eugene Perry
Author of Earthsongs, among others
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Sara Letourneau issues this invitation to the reader to be on the lookout for the unexpected moments in our ordinary lives. Wild Gardens is a collection of superbly crafted poems that show us how “the world is bursting with contradiction.” We appreciate the anonymous compliment on a Post-It Valentine left on a self-serve gas pump; learn to listen for the “gasp of wonder” in a whale’s exhalation; and come to expect that even a “headstrong” horse can guide us to a vista of breath-taking beauty. Only if we heed Letourneau’s advice in “How to Pack for Iceland” will we be sure to return with “the things you won’t expect to bring home.”
Alice Kociemba
Author of Bourne Bridge and co-editor of From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape Cod and the Islands through Poetry
Wild Gardens bursts with exuberance for the natural world. Reading Sara Letourneau’s collection of vibrant poems, flooded with color and light, is like wandering through the Butchart Gardens, blooming with beauty and wonder. Whether the poet is exploring Cape Cod, Iceland or downtown Manhattan, she stops time with her attention to birds, geysers, seashells, the scrubby weed reaching out through a crack in the sidewalk. In these Wild Gardens, metal music becomes an ocean, the howl of a wolf, and love is found both on a distant mountaintop and on a Post-it note at a gas pump. Even the grief of losing a loved one is tempered with flowers as Sara Letourneau generously bestows on her reader the same gift she received from her mother, “a handful of sky.”
Sara Letourneau’s Wild Gardens is a profound meditation on the natural world and the poet’s place in it. From geysers and waterfalls of Iceland to pitch pines and ocean beaches of Cape Cod, she explores the tenuous existence of places facing the growing danger of climate change. She lovingly describes a humpback whale, an Icelandic horse, and a great egret in Central Park. Her prose is elegiac, richly textured, and haunting. Included are poems of the heart: sweet, revelatory, and delighting in first love. In the title poem, she writes, “They [her poems] leap out of my palm into the air and land where they choose . . .” These are poems of connection, ones to read over again and to savor.
Robin Smith-Johnson
Author of Dream of the Antique Dealer’s Daughter and co-editor of From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape Cod and the Islands through Poetry
Wild Gardens shows us a poet demonstrating her love for the world, but equally importantly a love for the self that is achieved only haltingly. Sara Letourneau is attentive, searching, and wholly aware. There is a joy in discovery here that I can’t help but admire.
Reviews for Wild Gardens
Coming soon!
Other Press for Wild Gardens
NEW! November 2024: "Foxboro poet publishes book" (The Foxboro Reporter)
September 2024: "Poetry Book Launch for Sara Letourneau a Success" (The Franklin Observer)
