Glass spheres without spikes, glittery spirals twirling Where boughs of ribbons dangle ornaments. Of waterfalls tether my terrier and she greedily drinks. Yet deeper in the woods, smells evergreen my nose. To woo back warblers, towhees, Baltimore orioles.īut I see, hear nothing beyond the dying and the dead. To make room for oak seedlings and native pitch pine, The State prescribed the decimation to thin Trucks had hauled other trees away to…where?Ĭanopy gone, the onslaught of air is unbearable. Of trees, crisscrossed on the forest floorĪs if gods had forgotten their pick-up sticks. Hiking in the Belding preserve, I’m felled by the sight She is poet laureate of the Town of Vernon and directs Poetry Rocks, a quarterly reading series she founded five years ago. She teaches Creative Writing at the University of Connecticut and online through the Institute of Children’s Literature. Shea has published widely in prose, in children’s fiction and nonfiction, as well as in articles and essays for adult readers. This kind of writing developed when she moved to Connecticut in the mid-1980’s and explored nature with her children. Shea also writes about environmental themes.

She credits her parochial school education and her parents’ examples for steeping her in community - as well as international - awareness and service. Human rights and diversity are themes that recur in her poetry and in her books for young readers. She often writes about social justice issues and history, and her award-winning books for young readers include the biographies Noah Webster: Weaver of Words and Patience Wright: America’s First Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy and the historical fictions The Whispering Cloth: A Refugee’s Story, Tangled Threads, and Abe in Arms. Two-time winner of the Connecticut Book Award for Children’s Literature, Pegi Deitz Shea is also the author of more than 450 published articles, essays, and poems for adult readers.

Tangled Threads by Pegi Deitz Shea