Flickering

Penguin Poets

By: Pattiann Rogers, John A. Rogers

Narrated by: Pattiann Rogers, John A. Rogers

“[Rogers’] poems bring an openness of spirit and an almost scientific curiosity to the world at her feet, cataloging unexpected connections everywhere she looks.” —New York Times Book Review

A new collection from a poet whose “celebrations of science and approachable yet profound spiritual connection to the Earth delight, entertain, and elevate” (The Poetry Foundation)

Denise Levertov has called the poet Pattiann Rogers “a visionary of reality, perceiving the material world with such intensity of response that impulse, intention, meaning, interconnections beyond the skin of appearance are revealed.” The consistent theme In Flickering, her new collection, is the very breadth and prodigiousness of the universe itself. These wise poems, many inspired by various kinds of flickering actions in plants, animals, and natural processes, move nimbly between inner and outer worlds as Rogers addresses themes ranging from beauty, resilience and creation to the tensions and relationships between humans and wildness.

©2023 Pattiann Rogers (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“[G]rounded and evocative . . . it is clear that nature gives [Rogers] a great deal of joy.” —The Hudson Review

“[Flickering] burnishes [Rogers'] reputation as a transcendental poet of science, with Emersonian grandiosity . . . Verses of dizzying scope succumb to the gravitational pull of breathtakingly precise lines . . . This is a poignant homage to scientific attention and mystery.” —Publishers Weekly

“Reading Flickering is to shift focus from the human to all the other life surrounding us, whether the unseen bones that structure our lives without notice or thanks until a poet like Rogers comes along . . . If poetry, as Rogers argues, hasn’t yet seized all the opportunities ('this expanded vision of our world') that science offers, then Flickering is 'A spark, a tiny sun flew into the night.'" —New York Journal of Books