Overview

"This is a 90 page book of poetry by Chera Van Falcon Burg, a psychologist, published poet, and an award-winning filmmaker and environmental activist. She co-wrote and produced the film, Call Of Life, about the drivers of the current mass extinction crisis and its cultural and psychological underpinnings. The poet and scholar Estella Lauter said this first book of poetry by Van Falcon Burg that ""This is a beautiful book of poems-full of captivating images, astute insights into human psychology, compelling observations of the natural world and wisdom about our place in it. In five sections, the book moves from the author's early life, when nature was a respite from family trauma, through processes of learning to be of the Earth, not just on it."" In his analysis of the book, the Chicago poet, jazz musician, and literary journal publisher Al DeGenova said that ""Van Falcon Burg offers poetic answers true to her experience and vision, which share wisdom deeply felt and powerfully written.""Published by Four Windows Press, who has also published books by the American Book Award winner Terence Winch, the AWP Novel of the Year winner James Janko, and the poet Ethel Mortenson Davis, this is the latest in a series of volumes designed to champion voices that deserve to find a place on the American literary stage. This is accessible poetry for almost any reader, but it goes beyond most books of poetry as a result of Van Falcon Burg's sometimes innovative use of language and the power of her expression. She is after understandings drawn from her life experience in these poems but also after explorations that make sense out of a world with increasing environmental and social challenges. This is an extraordinary first book of poetry by an extraordinary poet and activist."

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"This is a beautiful book of poems-full of captivating images, astute insights into human psychology, compelling observations of the natural world and wisdom about our place in it. In five sections, the book moves from the author's early life, when nature was a respite from family trauma, through processes of learning to be of the Earth, not just on it. Van Falcon Burg immerses the reader in nature's plenty before showing us what has been lost and grieving that loss but also seeing grief as necessary for transformation. In the last section, she provides a bridge into a way of seeing from the perspectives of species other than human, recognizing the need to transcend our language and move beyond it into a world of being not yet known, or known only as other, in order to love the Earth in a way that compels us to save it and connects us more deeply with the mystery of life. Along the way, her vivid images make room for many different readers to find their own place in her journey. Estella Lauter, Door County Poet Laureate (2013-2015); Author, The Essential Rudder: North Channel Poems; Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award. In this expansive collection of poetry that forces its readers to question their lives and the places they've made for themselves now and in the future, Chera Van Falcon Burg shares her dismay and optimism for a life closely examined. Aptly titled, What We Can See, sets the stage for poetry that explores Van Falcon Burg's personal history, but also her vision of where she and the environment are at and are going. A central metaphorical and literal question for readers is ""what do we leave behind."" Van Falcon Burg offers poetic answers true to her experience and vision, which share wisdom deeply felt and powerfully written. In ""Activist Turned Lover,"" Van Falcon Burg writes: Love is the only action/ left to take/ and if it's too late, / it will be love/ that is left/ to fill the infinite hole/ in our Earthly heart. AAlbert DeGenova, poet, Executive Director of Write On Door County Chera Van Falcon Burg's What We Can See responds to our environmental and cultural moment with both a lyrical offer of tender companionship and a bracing exhortation to look-at the way a lightning-struck fallen tree opens a ""sacred space,"" at how our lives leave imprints like fossils, ""a testament/to the inexplicable beauty/and terror that is this Earthly life."" With eloquence, candor and courage, these poems imagine and re-imagine the past, present, and future of both one human life and our collective humanity. Nan Cohen, author of Unfinished City"

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