Florilegium

Molly Vogels first collection of poems Florilegium is an exploration of life written in the language of flowers. The poems regard flowers as both symbols and means of communication; in a broader sense they deem the natural world essential to our understanding of words ourselves and the divine. Like Coleridges rook in This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison the flower is a sign that connects those disparately placed both geographically and emotionally. Florilegium finds its blooms in Scotland as well as California; in free verse as well as stricter form; in books as well as dreams; on streets and at shrines as well as in wild gardens. Fittingly the poems are varied and vividly colourful inviting and surprising. They precede a long-form glossary a meditation growing out from the poems words but also from the entire history of literature and thought around flowers. Though intertwined with the poems the glossary is a collection in itself: in equal parts literary criticism philosophical treatise and prose poem.