Donelle Dreese

Organelle Donelle Dreese

The title poem of Donelle Dreese's remarkable collection Organelle tells us, "(t)his is about getting to know each other / again as a planetary imperative." These striking poems are a path into intimate awareness of the planet we inhabit but scarcely know, and with no less guides than the personas of Rachel Carson and her sisterhood of scientists and environmental activists, named and unnamed. "I think of what needs tending," says the speaker in the poem, "Mothering." Dreese's poems provide the answer: we all do, "from the salted mountain / to the dog barking at a strawberry moon / both familiar and phenomenal."



-Pauletta Hansel, Cincinnati Poet Laureate Emeritus



Donelle Dreese's poems are delicate and courageous, teaching us about wisdom and compassion. Part I recreates the portrait of Rachel Carson and leads us into a world rife with subtle knowledge about plants, animals, and nature. Dreese's metaphors connect the unexpected and the transcendent. Her work provides models of ecofeminism and fights to preserve the environment. Her poems treasure moments of grace, inviting us to share ceremonies and rituals, kindness and patience. As the lines in one of her poems invite, "Bring your color. All of it. Let every green grave / be a grand piano with moss on its keys. After / a long life, you might hear songs, long to play."



-Lucia Cherciu, Train Ride to Bucharest



Throughout Organelle, Donelle Dreese makes vivid the contributions of women to science with a lyrical precision befitting their love of the discipline while connecting their work to a vast natural spirituality. In "Rachel Carson at Woods Hole . . . " Dreese writes, "She took long shoreline walks / tide-pooling, examining / her own approachable soul / swirling its finger in a tunnel / of deep time." Laced throughout the collection is environmental concern and call to action-"Do something . . . Your own emerald heart is on fire." Yet the whole book insists on hope, encouraging us to "grow hardwood brave." Dreese takes us on the very "return to lyric forests" which she explores: deep, nimble, nourishing, wild, a restful yet invigorating canopy of starfish and strawberry, tidal pool and snow.



-Taunja Thomson, The Profusion