How Trees Must Feel

Aiming to write for these who tell her "I don't like poetry, but I like what you write," Longenecker seeks to create poems that are textually accessible and often traditional in form yet (as her title poem signals) use the ordinary to convey the extraordinary. "Chris Longenecker's poems often gaze upwards but are rooted firmly below, as earthy as damp loam, as fresh as a spring tendril," observes John C. Rohrkemper, Associate Professor of English, Elizabethtown College. "Chris takes the happenings of a common day, a conversation with a lover, a family gathering, and winds them into a framework that, like Georgia O'Keefe's magnified flowers, helps us really see these moments--which, without poets or artists, might slip by unnoticed. She surreptitiously, by way of trees, lilies, and socks on the floor, nudges us to lean into life and love," celebrates Pamela Dintaman, contemplative pastor, chaplain, and Yuma, Arizona, desert dweller"