Nature's Olympics

“In Nature’s Olympics, Janet Ruth Heller captures the brilliance of the natural world—much of which we take for granted—with her clear, sharp imagery and subtle nuance. She reminds us to pay attention, from season to season, and stop in wonder and awe to both appreciate the complex beauty we are surrounded by and to think about our human connections to those cycles and seasons. An excellent writer of haiku, Heller uses the characteristic juxtaposition and insight in all of these fine poems.” —Jim Daniels, author of Gun/Shy, The Middle Ages, Street Calligraphy, Places/Everyone, Rowing Inland, The Perp Walk, and Eight Mile High

“In this collection of quiet poems, Janet Ruth Heller pulls back her curtains each morning, steps out into the world and begins recording all that she witnesses. She is paying attention, giving us details others might overlook. She chronicles sparrows in a puddle that ‘carouse like drunks,’ ‘a million tiny parachutes’ that drift from the cottonwood, and snow that blows into ‘giant egg whites / whipped stiff by the wind.’ With keenly precise vision, Heller ponders those moments in the natural world that cannot be fully held onto, but which shouldn’t be forgotten.” —Gail Martin, author of Begin Empty-Handed, The Hourglass Heart, and Disappearing Queen

“In Nature’s Olympics, the lyric and the narrative, experience and observation dance with one another, change partners, recombine. A gravesite, a canoe in a storm, a luncheon, unroll as if in real time; a few pages later, in stunning haikus, Heller distills a sickle moon, some finches, a doe to their sharpest lyrical moment, to the purely present. Throughout, she enables us to experience what is present, what is past, through the lens of her unique consciousness. In Nature’s Olympics, Janet Ruth Heller claims her poetic place at the intersection of memory and the vivid now.” —Susan Blackwell Ramsey, author of A Mind Like This

Virtual Book Tour in April for National Poetry Month