Light Enters the Grove

A literary hike through Ohio’s oldest national park

An anthology celebrating the biodiversity and staggering beauty of Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Light Enters the Grove collects 81 poems, each of which reflects its author’s unique connection to a living organism found within the park—ranging from white-tailed deer to brown bats and from Japanese honeysuckle to bloodroot. Additionally, each poem is paired with an artistic depiction of the poem’s subject that reinforces the rich relationship between artists and the natural world.

Editors Charles Malone, Carrie George, and Jason Harris provide a stirring introduction to this emotional journey through the park. Renowned writers featured in the volume include Kari Gunter-Seymour, poet laureate of Ohio, and Deborah Fleming, whose book Resurrection of the Wild won the 2020 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

This collection invites readers to look further into their own experiences and memories of the park, to reflect on their relationships to its species, and to recognize the importance of preserving the lives and habitats of our nonhuman neighbors.

Charles Malone is assistant director of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University. His poetry collections include After an Eclipse of Moths, Working Hypothesis, and Questions about Circulation.

Carrie George received her MFA from Kent State University and the Northeast Ohio MFA program. She is the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, and her work has appeared in Hayden’s Ferry Review, the Florida Review, the Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere.

Jason Harris is a Black American who serves as editor in chief for Gordon Square Review. His writing has appeared in Hobart, Barren Magazine, the Cleveland Review of Books, and more.