Second Nature Poems

“Learn of the green world what can be thy place,” wrote Ezra Pound. In Second Nature, her tenth collection of poems, Margaret Gibson takes Pound’s stern counsel to heart. With stunning clarity, these poems move from acute observation to an empathy, participation, and intimacy that continues Gibson’s search to experience the “one body” of the world in direct encounter and to translate that encounter into words. As Emerson tells us, the Spirit moves throughout Nature and through us—our art is, therefore, second nature. Whether Gibson’s poems take us to Greece and to “a writing desk no larger than a page of light” or whether they explore the woods that surround her house, all of the poems arise from the desire to embrace a “fierce, clear-eyed attention” and to be open to revelation. Her poems re-imagine watchfulness, seeing beyond surfaces, listening to what is innermost. Second Nature gives us poems that are a ripening of years of poetic and spiritual practice—simply Gibson at her best.