Laverne Frith

Co-editor of Ekphrasis, Laverne has chapbooks from Talent House Press, White Heron Press, and two chapbooks, Drinking The Light (2007) and The Range Of Seeing (2008), from Finishing Line Press, both of which having been nominated for The Commonwealth Club of California’s California Book Awards. His work has been accepted or appeared in Poetry New York, Tiger’s Eye, Christian Science Monitor, Sundog, Comstock, Montserrat, CQ, Dalhousie, etc. He has a Pushcart Prize nomination and honors and awards in many poetry competitions.

Laverne Frith Poems

Spot Metering

How critical it is to zero in with that first reading,
to not be over or under in that initial assessment

when the decision is made to move forward,
to engage, to not be taken in by the rush of the

waters, the cool mist of the falls, the thin veil
of denials, the confusing clouds of a checkered

history. It is absolutely critical to take the time,
to focus, to take your reading carefully, to check

all settings, and then, and only then, release.

Incident Of Spring

Something blown, orbicular,
shaped more like bird than leaf,

yellow-orange body
but with a hundred green eyes

a deep brown aggregate at its beak.
How far can a simile go before

metaphor overwhelms?
What the wind blows must settle

somewhere. Finally, this ground,
this leaf.