Roots and Flowers: Poets Write About Their Families

Roots and Flowers reveals heartfelt truths about poets and their families.

"How Quickly, How EarlyThe fourth grader, his puffy down jacketblood-red as any cardinal,flies lightly up the path to school, skiddingwhen he gets to the open door.

Then, looking strangely like his father heading in to work,he stops; shoves back his hood,braces his shouldersfor the day, and trudges forward.
How quickly, how early such lessons begin. "
--Liz Rosenberg

This companion to The Invisible Ladder, Liz Rosenberg's award-winning poetry anthology that deals with poets and their childhoods, explores the bonds between poets and their families. Framed by the poets' photos and statements about their families, here is an exploration of giving birth, raising a child, seeing a parent age and pass away. Poets such as Stanley Kunitz, Robert Bly, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Linda Pastan offer readers not only poems of startling beauty, but also a unique entry into the sources of their art.

Roots and Flowers is the perfect gift for a family that shares poetry, for fans of the many poets in this book, and for young writers whose own emotional life centers on their families. Liz Rosenberg's deep connection with the poetry community allowed her to get the personal and revealing contributions from the authors in this book. And the book is permeated with intimacy and celebration.

Liz Rosenberg is an award-winning anthologist, a published poet, a professor of children's literature and a critic whose reviews frequently appear in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Her previous poetry anthologies include Light-Gathering Poems, The Invisible Ladder, and Earth-Shattering Poems. She lives with her family in Binghamton, New York.