Barbara Crooker
Credo
Artist Statement: Talking & Listening to Plants
Climate change, above all, is the biggest challenge of our time. And yet it’s frustrating; what can we, as individuals, actually do about it? In my “one wild and precious life” (Mary Oliver), especially now, in my later years, perhaps the only thing I can do is make a garden, using compost, that small miracle where ordinary earthworms turn kitchen scraps into rich black dirt. This year, a cantaloupe that sprouted from the compost (as opposed to the one I actually planted from seeds) produced five of the sweetest melons I’ve ever grown, making me feel like a rich woman. Oh, and I can try to write some poems, in which I ask that we all pay attention to these miracles. . . .
BARBARA CROOKER is a poetry editor for Italian-Americana, and author of twelve chapbooks and nine full-length books of poetry. Some Glad Morning (Pitt Poetry Series, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019) is the latest. Her awards include the WB Yeats Society of New York Award, the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, and three Pennsylvania Council fellowships in literature. Her work appears in literary journals and anthologies, including: Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania, and The Bedford Introduction to Literature. She lives and gardens (herbs, vegetables, perennials, small orchard) in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, where she valiantly does battle with the white-tailed deer.