Breath and Bone, Poems by Bettina Barrett

The world encompasses dreams and spirit, earth and body, in Bettina Barrett's elegant Breath and Bone.

Sample Poems by Bettina Barrett

"A lifelong traveler with words, Bettina Barrett offers poems infused with tenderness, magic, and healing. Walk with her into stories of Earth, Bear, Breath, and Bone that move between 'the long ago and the Now,' seeking 'with wonder/what appears then fades/into the dark.'" -Cynthia Anderson, author of In the Mojave and Desert Dweller

"By turns tender, reflective, and sensuous, Bettina Barrett's words dream wild animal presences as domestic companions, often as though actually inhabiting her. In a similar way, the poems of Breath and Bone are like stones on a beach which draw the attention of hand and eye and mind until they become intimate companions." -Dan Gerber

"In her 'season of fullness,' one of the ways Bettina describes herself, the timing of Breath and Bone is impeccable and necessary, best described as a love poem to Mother Earth, to whom she dedicates her book in the wake of possible desication. Actually, her poems are a meditation on the sacredness of our land and all its Old Ones and Wild Ones who tell her stories in dreams that she reveals slowly, step by step and breath by breath, crafted to the bone. The universe fit 'into the corner of her eye,' she walks between many worlds with bear and wolf, and the music of her finely tuned ear." -Perie Longo, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate Emerita, author of Baggage Claim

"With her book Breath and Bone, Barrett has deeply honored her own life, the natural world, and the lives of all beings. Upon reading the final eulogy, I want to thank her for setting me right, for reminding me of my own deeply-rooted values. Barrett moves through nature with exquisite openness, gives her whole heart to tree, bear, bird, stone, water, shell. Her close observance of nature is like that of a mother who wonders at the perfection of her child." -Enid Osborn, author of When the Big Wind Comes and co-editor of A Bird Black As the Sun / California Poets on Crows & Ravens