The Twig Songs

Gwen Ebert

Gwen Ebert’s poems juxtapose the fragility and emotion of human life with that of the natural world. She regrets the loss of “everything I thought/too plain to hold on to” in her family heritage, even as she contemplates the accumulating environmental vacuums being passed on to future generations. Ebert’s poems draw on her experiences as a naturalist and environmental educator. Ebert was awarded a Four Way Books prize in 2001 and a Guy Owen Poetry Prize from Southern Poetry Review. Ebert lived for several years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she completed her MFA in poetry. She currently lives in Madison, WI.

View Online

Order for $10

Excerpt

Inheritance

Mostly I wish I had taken
the hand-sewn
brown bags
she folded into her coat pocket
on the cable car
to the downtown Gimbels
on Tuesdays,
and to Winkies on Villard
for seam binding,
carpet thread–
last minute notions.
When I walk home
from the Giant Food Store
with the melon and half gallon
in slippery blue plastic,
the dispensable wrist holes
strain into strings
that hurt.
I lose my grip.
I miss the cloth
of my people
and everything I thought
too plain to hold on to.