The contents of this anthology might tempt one to ask: Sylvia Plath in a gardening book? Aren't gardening books supposed to be lightweight affairs? Not so, proclaim editors Charles Dean and Clyde Wachsberger, who have assembled an impressive set of poems and short stories to address what they see as "the profound passions and wild obsessions that motivate gardeners." In Plath's work, "Fable of the Rhododendron Stealers," the poet steals a small bud from a public rose garden. Carrying it home and placing it in water, she hopes to keep it alive a little longer: "I considered the poetry I rescued / from blind air, from complete eclipse." The longing in this poem is part of the book's moody atmosphere--in a powerful story by John Updike, a self-absorbed and fearful narrator sees in leaf shadows "innumerable barbaric suggestions of scimitars, flanged spears, prongs, and menacing helmets." Although it's interspersed with soothing illustrations, obviously this book is no Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul. Including poems by Billy Collins and Mark Doty, as well as stories by William Saroyan and Kate Chopin, the one glaring omission is Jamaica Kincaid. Her work would fit perfectly into this collection of writers who see gardens as complex metaphors, or endlessly evocative dreamscapes. --Emily White

From Booklist
Blistered and scratched, mud-spattered and grimy, gardeners not only coax life from the soil through their sweat and strain but also with the faith and devotion that their efforts will be rewarded with a bit of beauty and sustenance. To do so requires more than the technical know-how that guides pruning shears or the trained eye that chooses to plant daylilies near daffodils--for gardeners are, if nothing else, receptive souls in tune to the life that flows around them. Dean and Wachsberger celebrate these sensitivities in 24 lustrous poems and stories harvested from the work of some of America and Britain's most acclaimed authors, contributors who understand the essential connection between person and plant. The work of Robert Frost and Alice Walker, John Updike and Kate Chopin, O. Henry and Sylvia Plath explore the motivation and mystery behind gardening, the most ancient of human activities, in a sumptuous anthology adorned with elegant sumi ink illustrations. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Robert Dash, author of Notes from Madoo: The Making of a Garden in the Hamptons
[Offers] the wild rewarding pleasures of insight, empathy, and deep green communication—a warm and moody collection.

Book Description
Winner of the 2002 Garden Writers Association of America's Garden GlobeAward for Illustration. A literary anthology that summons up the profound passions and wild obsessions of gardening. The answers to many gardening questions can be found in how-to manuals and essays, but who can fathom the passions behind the obsession? Why do we get down on our hands and knees in the mud in March or return to the garden for one last look before dark? Only the storytellers and poets can tell us. The twelve short stories and twelve poems collected here celebrate the irresistible emotions that plants inspire. A beautiful flower arouses the desire to possess in "The Lily" by H. E. Bates and "The Fable of the Rhododendron Stealers" by Sylvia Plath. In William Saroyan's "The Pomegranate Trees" a man plants fruit trees from his native Armenia and then goes to extremes to keep them alive in the California desert. Robert Graves's humorous story, "Earth to Earth," is set during the Second World War and reveals the secret ingredient in uniquely potent compost; and in Billy Collins's "Bonsai" a miniature tree changes our perspective on the whole world. Also included are Mary Austin, Kate Chopin, Amy Clampitt, Eugenia Collier, Mark Doty, Robert Frost, O. Henry, Josephine Jacobsen, Sarah Orne Jewett, Howard Nemerov, Kathleen Raine, Christopher Reid, Saki, James Schuyler, John Updike, Arturo Vivante, Alice Walker, William Carlos Williams, and Cynthia Zarin. Twelve elegant black-and-white sumi paintings of plants by Clyde Wachsberger enhance the collection. There is no better way to cultivate a gardener's passions during the long winter months than through this beautiful and moving book. 12 black and white illustrations, preface, biographical notes.

About the Author
Charles Dean is the assistant maitre d' at The Carlyle Hotel in New York City and an avid city gardener. Clyde Wachsberger is a landscape designer in Southold, New York, and writes a gardening column for North Fork Country. He has recently had several one-man shows of his watercolors featuring Long Island gardens and landscapes.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The answers to many gardening questions can be found in practical books and essays, but how to explain the passions behind the obsession? Why do we get down on our hands and knees in the mud in March? What lures us back to the garden for one last look before dark? Only storytellers and poets can tell us.

In this anthology of twelve stories and twelve poems, major American and British authors celebrate the powerful emotions that plants and gardening inspire. H. E. Bates writes about a man so struck by the beauty of a lily that he goes to extremes to possess it. Mary Austin and Sarah Orne Jewett spin tales of exotic gardens with the power to heal and to arouse love, one in California, the other in Maine. Poet James Schuyler tenderly frets over an ailing fern. In a witty story by Saki, a British society woman orders a garden in full bloom, installed for the afternoon, to outdo a luncheon guest whose own garden is the envy of the neighborhood. And in poems of profound simplicity, Robert Frost asks "which is fairer, flower or leaf?" while Billy Collins shows a bonsai's power to change our perspective on the whole world.