Leah Shelleda

Once upon a career, I taught Humanities and Philosophy at the College of Marin in northern California. After a long struggle between me and my somewhat-ignored Muse, I finally let her have her way with me - I retired to write poetry. The result is After the Jug was Broken.

When I am not ensconced with laptop and cat in favorite chair, there is a loom waiting for me, a demanding garden of fruit and roses, and 8 grandkids. My husband and I have traveled to Africa, India, Europe and Asia, and those places had a profound effect on my poetry.

And now the new anthology of poetry I edited has been published! It's called The Book of Now: Poetry for the Rising Tide. In 2011 my husband and I traveled to Southern Mexico, and in the rain forests of Chiapas the great trees took over my voice and new poems appeared about the Change we have entered. I was so fortunate to find a group of wonderful poets who speak to the love and sorrow of our relation to the earth, and how psyche mirrors nature.