The honeysuckle has been called “the wild wanderer of the South.” With its roots firmly in the ground, the honeysuckle’s vines travel with fragile blooms and sweet liquid. In much the same way, the verses in this collection of poetry offer a taste of Alabama. The beauty and meaning expressed in “Beachcombing,” “Spring Burning,” and “First Flowers” translates easily to those outside the state.
Betsy Barber Bancroft recalls the playfulness of the girl who searched for the “ox Alice” and “dandy lions” in grandmother’s garden. Beautifully descriptive verses capture the hillside where her grandfather chose the “first-found flowering of plant and tree” to give to his wife every spring. That hillside, “tangled and deserted now,” is a sweet memory traveling through time and geography to share an “exuberant love of God and His variety of blossoming.”
About the Author
Betsy Barber Bancroft is a distinguished author of poetry whose work incorporates the tumultuous emotions of life with the beauty of nature and the importance of family. She has been honored by the Education Department of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and by Northwestern State University of Louisiana, where her works are housed in the Eugene P. Watson Memorial Library. She is also the author of the poetry collection Green Again, published by Pelican. Bancroft resides in Birmingham, Alabama.
WILD HONEYSUCKLE
By Betsy Barber Bancroft
Illustrated by Ruth Powers Bridges
POETRY / American / General
32 pp. 6 x 9
16 b/w illus.
ISBN: 9780911116731