Vertebrae: Poems 1978-1994

Here is an account of life on an island, close to earth and sea and the things and creatures of a specific place, uttered as declaration or dialogue or meditation, with the soul and sense of a remarkably gifted poet enriching every line, every page. Linked as sequence or by subject to make the patterns of backbones, the poems relate the day-to-day affairs of one who has chosen, with his wife and neighbors for company, to live where the elemental takes on the flesh of meaning in particular, closely observed ways. Every experience is thus as charged and natural and profoundly moving as the sound of the human voice, carried across water from the trees and rocks of the shoreline. Through these poems we hear the voice of one who cherishes language as the vital force connecting us to each other - one who knows how vital the poetic resources of language are to express our deepest feelings, fear, anger, joy, love. And everywhere we encounter, and are refreshed by, Sam Green's acceptance of the poet's status in the world he wakes and works and makes love and sleeps in. Strength and tenderness are here as assuredly as the woodsman's grip on his ax handle, and the player's fingers over the strings of his guitar.