Foliage: Various Poems

W.H. Davies spent years wandering as a tramp through Britain and America, and that restless, observant eye animates every poem in this collection. Here are poems written by someone who truly looked at the world: a starling's iridescence, the particular silence of snow, the business of ants. Davies writes with the precision of a naturalist and the soul of a mystic, finding cathedral grandeur in a hedgerow. These are not elaborate poems. They are short, clear, concentrated. But within that brevity lies an enormous capacity for wonder. He reminds us that the common things we pass daily are actually miraculous, if we have the patience to see them. The Georgians promised poetry that breathed, and Davies delivers: direct, honest, unafraid of small things.