Anna Davis Bedford’s What Glows in My Garden draws us into a world of family relationships in which we share the lives of seven generations. Her poetry creates vivid and memorable landscapes and peoples them with characters who make us laugh and cry and whom we come to regard as friends by the time we finish the book. The mysterious, uncontained, and often playful powers underlying life are glimpsed through people — often children or even a “guardian angel” — and through the “glowing,” growing world of nature. Although the richness and joys of life are sometimes linked with sorrow or loss, the poetry holds together the past and present, with all their people and places, leaving the reader with an intimation of grace and a sense of peace.
Lynn Ross-Bryant
Professor of Religion and Literature
University of Colorado, Boulder
What Glows in My Garden
I saw the meteor Flash across the sky. It fell beside the pine tree, The one that’s bent over, Like an old woman.
I looked at it, Black as coal, Should I pick it up, Is it mine to hold?
It wasn’t hot, ‘had turned cold. Did it have a life? Did it have a soul?
I put it in my rose garden. No one needs to know, What glows in my garden From world’s I’ll never know.
About Anna Davis Bedford
Anna was born in southeastern Kentucky. These poems voice the deeply quilted imagination of her homeland and family and their proud ways which still echo in her life. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Anna Davis Bedford’s What Glows in My Garden draws us into a world of family relationships in which we share the lives of seven generations. Her poetry creates vivid and memorable landscapes and peoples them with characters who make us laugh and cry and whom we come to regard as friends by the time we finish the book. The mysterious, uncontained, and often playful powers underlying life are glimpsed through people — often children or even a “guardian angel” — and through the “glowing,” growing world of nature. Although the richness and joys of life are sometimes linked with sorrow or loss, the poetry holds together the past and present, with all their people and places, leaving the reader with an intimation of grace and a sense of peace.
Anna was born in southeastern Kentucky. These poems voice the deeply quilted imagination of her homeland and family and their proud ways which still echo in her life. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.