Ridges

"In Ridges, Diane Moore creates a mystical space-a union of art, poetry, biography and nature-that honors her friend Don Thornton's life and his vivid paintings of Louisiana's Chenier Plain."-Rose Anne Raphael, Artist and Writer, New Iberia, Louisiana"Diane Moore's Ridges sings of friendship born from a mutual love of nature and a shared Louisiana landscape. Interspersed with Don Thornton's paintings, these poems resonate with a seasonal rhythm of birth and blossoming, death and decay. They remind us of the actual history of hurricanes in 1856 and 1893, giving us a Louisiana landscape always suffering from nature's threats and menaces. Moore deftly blends natural and human, art and place, in this loving tribute to a fellow artist and friend, seeing in those ridges 'the mud flats of old sufferings.' Bravo to a seasoned poet whose works speak to all that makes us human."-Mary Ann Wilson, Professor Emerita of English, University of Louisiana, Lafayette"Diane Moore's empathetic poems expand readers' understandings of Thornton's paintings of the Chenier Plain. Her vivid words illustrate how live oak ridges' 'submerged and revived' water levels affect plant and animal life as they adapt to this unique ecology."-Kathleen Hamman, Editor & Publisher, Creative Services, Sewanee, Tennessee"A haunting collection of poems and paintings. Diane Moore crowns her work, so far, with this splendid merger of paintings, Don Thornton's life, nature, and her own deep empathy."-Jo Ann Lordahl, Author of My Unveiled Face: A Memoir of a Free Woman and Princess Ruth: Love & Tragedy in Hawai'i