Child of the Ocmulgee is a selection of Freda Quenneville’s nature poetry. The myriad small details of the physical world formed the symbolic landscape from which she created a lyrical and affirmative body of work over three decades. The poems are presented in roughly chronological order and provide an ideal introduction to one of the most neglected poets of the Northwest. Quenneville said of her vocation, “It may take years of experience to distil the drop that fuels one line of a poem, years of observation to know one real thing about oneself and thus, the world. A writer has the need to share the excitement of the seen and known—as when a plant thought dead wakens you with a blossom—and if he or she cannot share that knowing, the most privileged part of existence feels diminished.”
