Barbara Crooker: "In the Late Summer Garden"

The VPR Poem of the Week is Barbara Crooker’s “In the Late Summer Garden,” which appeared in the Spring/Summer 2001 issue (Volume II, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Barbara Crooker’s Radiance won the 2005 Word Press First Book Award and was a finalist for the 2006 Paterson Poetry Prize. Diane Lockward’s review of Radiance appeared in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue (volume VII, Number 2) of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Crooker’s second full-length collection of poems, Line Dance, has recently been released by Word Press. In addition, she is the author of ten chapbooks, two of which won prizes in national competitions: Ordinary Life won the ByLine Chapbook competition in 2001 and Impressionism won the Grayson Books Chapbook competition in 2004. Barbara Crooker’s poems also have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Beloit Poetry Journal, Christian Century, Christian Science Monitor, Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, Nimrod, Poetry International, Smartish Pace, and Tampa Review.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights an exceptional work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review with the recommendation that readers revisit it. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections. Additionally, readers are reminded that VPR pages are best read with the browser font preference in which they were set, 12 pt. Times New Roman, in order to guarantee the stanza alignment and the breaks of longer lines are preserved.