Todd Davis, professor of English and environmental studies, has had his fourth book of poems, "In the Kingdom of the Ditch," published by Michigan State University Press.
In poetry that is at once accessible and finely crafted, Davis maps the mysterious arc between birth and death, celebrating the beauty and pain of our varied entrances and exits, while taking his readers into the deep forests and waterways of the Northeastern United States. With an acute sensibility for language, Davis captures the smallest nuances in the flowers, trees and animals he encounters through a daily life spent in the field. Davis draws upon stories and myths from Christian, Transcendental and Buddhist traditions to explore the intricacies of the spiritual and physical world we too often overlook. In celebrating the abundant life he finds in a ditch — replete with Queen Anne’s lace and milkweed, raspberries and blackberries, goldenrod and daisies — Davis suggests that life is consistently transformed, resurrected by what grows out of the fecundity of our dying bodies.
A poet, praised by The Bloomsbury Review, Arts & Letters and many others, Davis provides not only a taxonomy of the flora and fauna of his native Pennsylvania but also a new way of speaking about the sacred walk we make with those we love toward the ultimate mystery of death.