In Leatha Kendrick’s deft hands, the poplar tree stands as witness, sentinel, and placeholder to these resonant, rooted poems of love and memory. In these expertly crafted poems—opulent in sound and cohesive in imagery—the poet discovers a nexus of longevity and endurance by offering up the wisest “words that rise / through silence.”
—Marianne Worthington, author of The Girl Singer

The poems of Interior with Poplar are deep and dazzling, personal and cosmic. Writing through yet another of life’s awkward ages, Kendrick looks back to where and who she has been & forward to the unknown, unplannable future. She gives us a testimony to this time of life, “this layering of loves” & questions as our children and grandchildren grow on without us, though, like trees, we still feed them through our roots.
—George Ella Lyon, Kentucky Poet Laureate, 2015-2016, and author of Back to the Light

Verse memoir, chronicle of a happy marriage, reflection on the passage of time, a study of poplars from the writer's window—Leatha Kendrick's Interior with Poplar is all of these things and more. They fulfill Jane Hirshfield's expectations of a good poem: “A good poem, then, is a solvent, a kind of WD-40 for the soul.”
—Richard Taylor, Kentucky Poet Laureate, 1999-2001, and author of Elkhorn, Evolution of a Kentucky Landmark

Interior with Poplar is a life-study where we travel with Leatha Kendrick through many of the houses that have made up her own life. We read Kendrick and we learn how to love the world, love others, and love ourselves better.
—Jeremy Paden, author of How to Recognize God’s Chosen