Yellow Leaves

Alana Dagenhart is a poet, artist, and teacher who is trying to be a better global citizen. She likes to think about the intersection between science, art, and poetry and has been reading lately about time, light, cartography, and mythology. She is studying Latin American poetics. In her free time, she enjoys snow sports, backyard fires, and designing things. She lives in North Carolina with her husband José Rogelio Calvo in a little house with crooked doors and their dog Ela, and cats Paco & Luna. This is her first poetry collection.. From the book...WHAT PURPOSE, THIS POET?Could it be the poet is to eat the maps?Crush continents between molars?Exhaust hours and oceanto suckle below surface?Ingest world, spit truth.Take the bones of Earth's dead childrenas communion.Let our blood save theirs.Take the hurt of the stone floor, the bullet, and shackleunlock, uncock, unrock.Sluice the stars and give back gold.