Description
Statements Made in Passing by Kathleen Serley is a collection of forty poems anchored by family and a sense of place. The poet invites you into her garden to share her appreciation for the natural world, reflects on the way family nurtures and widens her lens to show broader connections. She writes about melons and monarchs, apples and acorns and about woodland walks always with an eye to how these observations connect us to family and expand our world view.
Praise for Statements Made in Passing
“Serley’s intimacy with nature resonates from the window, door, gardens, and woods, as she plants, tends, harvests. Synergy between plants and people, and so much more is unearthed in these poetic cultivations, ripe in image, insight, and metaphor. Passages like ‘the whisper of warm peach jars sealing on a still August night’ explicate the restorative power and truth found in closer connections with our natural surroundings. Serley’s phrases glisten on first read, linger in far deeper ways.”
Nancy Austin, Something Novel Came in Spring
“While journeying through these poems the reader is gifted with lines that delight and others that make you think: ‘about roots, the way they’re said to hold / a thing in place, tether it to one spot. / Yet give roots have a chance / and they’ll split a rock wide open.’ In Serley’s thoughtful and lyric writing, her mother becomes our mother, the view out her window becomes our view. These poems are thoughtful and deeply textured, with a subtle hopefulness abiding in her words for us to grasp and share.”
Steve Tomasko, and no spiders were harmed
“Through insightful meditations on nature, family, and time, Statements Made in Passing explores how easily we overlook opportunities to contribute to the beauty around us. By balancing observation with gratitude, Serley opens us to the world’s constant impermanence, demonstrating that love is the gift we must pass on—through peaches, butterflies, teaching a child to skip. These poems reveal exactly how ‘forty years makes a difference, or no difference at all.’”
Angela Voras-Hills, Louder Birds
“The natural world of Kathleen Serley’s poetry overflows with industrious squirrels, vibrant delphinium, and juicy melons ripening on the vine. But underneath the green leaves readers will find some tension, too: rattlesnakes, winter storms, and a nostalgic sweetness that doesn’t always cover the more bitter flavors. Serley’s imagery is as fresh and fertile as the soil she tends, but unlike gardening, Statements Made in Passing can be enjoyed no matter what the weather’s doing outside.”
Eric Rasmussen, Editor of Barstow And Grand
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