peter nash
Peter Nash is a semi-retired family physician who has been practicing medicine for forty years. He writes most mornings, occasionally helps his wife in the garden, boards two old mares, and wanders along the Mattole River with his dog Henry. He lives in Northern California on the Lost Coast, one of the longest stretches of undeveloped coastline in the continental United States.
winner of 2012
off the grid Poetry prize
“Without ever shouting, Peter Nash’s poems of rural life are deeply moving, whether as elegy or celebration.”
“Here’s a poet who has lived his life, not just imagined it. When he remembers the ‘arrowhead,’ ‘flickering tongue,’ and ‘black seeds’ of a snake’s eyes, you see them too. ”
Coyote Bush
Poems by peter nash
Coyote Bush is a book that pays homage to the earth. It is a paean to the stars and their constellations, the clouds and the wind, to the horses, cows, deer, and dogs, all who blessedly live without language. In these poems of place, Nash traces and retraces his time-worn paths into the hills of Northern California. He is content at times just to watch the light change or lie down in the hollow a pregnant doe has made in the night. But these are also poems of refuge and discovery, poems of love, of suffering, relationships, childhood memories, sudden enlightenment, sometimes back to back, sometimes rising to the surface when the reader is ready for them. Nash finds his place among the elements, firmly rooted between earth and sky.
