Where the Deer Sleep is Jenny Bates' third book with Hermit Feathers Press following Slip (2020) and Visitations (2019). Bates lives adjacent to Hanging Rock State Park and her writing blurs the lines between what is tame and what is not. Her surroundings are still and peaceful and timeless. Her woods go on and on forever and her poetry reflects this unique relationship to the land and the company of animals.
Where the Deer Sleep is an inspiring call to reverence and wonder. To a place where "directions are not geographical." To a time life can "go back to being a good dog." To the church of cats and crows, stars and thunder, patience and grace - where the ordinary is divine. And miracle. I believe Jenny when she tells us she sits with toads - and listens. These poems make no pretense of being the High-Priestess of anything. Instead, they stand quietly by the entrance, bulletin in hand - inviting us in. You will be glad you did.
-David Dixon, author of Scattering of Saints (Hermit Feathers Press)
Jenny Bates' poems concentrate immense wisdom into delicately crafted miniatures. Where the Deer Sleep is a meditation on the fragile bonds between humankind and other living creatures and is particularly relevant to our time. Bates' insights show she is truly a walker between worlds...And note, walker between worlds is my ultimate accolade!
- Juliet Marillier, author of the Seven Waters and Warrior Bards series
Jenny Bates' new collection, Where The Deer Sleep, is a love song to the natural world. These lyrical, and often narrative, poems celebrate animals of all kinds-from a domestic cat to deer and Turkey Vultures, toads and so many more-and our relationships with them. Many of the best poems in the collection ask whether animals need us at all or if we're simply co-existing. In Nocturnal Howl Before Compline the narrator says, "...foxes sun themselves whether I'm there to watch or not." And in Dots she questions whether the odd number of spots on a red-bellied woodpeckers tail are a "Distraction or a miracle?" asking the reader to define their own relationship with the animals around them. In the end, Where the Deer Sleep, is a winning portrait of a wanderer, a naturalist and a poet, finding solace in the natural world. In one poem, Bates says, "I find myself loving this long, slow resurrection of wild things," and I have no doubt here she speaks the truth.
- Steve Cushman, author of How Birds Fly
