Matches Strike Boxes by Jane Spencer

Growing up in Maine influenced the connection to nature that runs throughout Jane Spencer’s first book of poems, Matches Strike Boxes. Inventively, she explores a multitude of animals, plant and other natural events, that reflect human emotions and personal struggles. She often redirects us from the seriousness commonly found in poetry, to humor instead. We see words appear from boot prints in snow, whales rejecting civilization, an egret as punk, the Zen perspective of a baby dragon, and a child communing with a bull in a pasture. How nature makes the best theatre comes through all her senses. A garden’s shadows can enrich one’s’ world, answering our desires. This writer reveals a truly philosophical approach to a world quickly fading from our consciousness.