Leaf-eater by Charley Barnes

Available on Kindle here

For trade copies or author copies please contact us on [email protected]

LEAF-EATER takes a look at the natural world through a dog’s senses. Lockdown has been a troubling time for the mental health of many, and the poet of this pamphlet has found a refreshing and enriching way of dealing with this. Spending increasing amounts of time outside with her puppy in various landscapes, she has been learning the world anew through him.

Take a poetic walk with her in the fields, forests and river banks Benji has been discovering, and taste his insatiable appetite for nature… 

---

The boy prefers the fields before they’re cut –
likes the lick of grass along his small gut,
how the blades make tongues
of themselves, the dew their spit and dribble.

When the turf is slashed I feel the absence
for him, see in his infant face
the loss of tickles, touches from nature.​