“Colorscapes is a book about life—about green and yellow and “provocative pink,” about bugs and bluejays and bunnies. It speaks of ancient rocks, of flitting butterflies, of the colors we see, and those we feel. Lee Woodman’s poems blend sound with color in cadenced, syncopated rhythms that are primal and instinctual and fresh and new. The smallest objects and life forms—a pebble, a wood frog, a bumblebee—speak to us through color. And through color we relive experiences we’ve had, people we’ve met, and passions that have enriched our lives.

Colorscapes tells us truths about ourselves and our lives that we sometimes forget, or more likely, ignore. Like the musicians, poets, painters, and natural forms that inspired her, she charges us to live and breathe through color. Woodman says when she dies she wants to be dirt that nourishes and sustains the earth. She reminds us that everything counts, nothing is inconsequential, and that color suffuses our lives with meaning and memory.”

–Virginia M. Mecklenburg, chief Curator Emerita, Smithsonian American Art Museum

“The poems in Colorscapes, Lee Woodman’s latest book, seem born from a deep study and a passionate enthusiasm for color, which she explores in the natural world, at the heart of stories, and in the hands of artists. Her images can be dazzling as a peacock’s spread tail, especially when describing birds, flowers, and gardens. Readers will enjoy, as did I, an inviting variety in poems’ tone, content, and type. One witty narrative poem, “Devil with My Green Dress On,” recounts a laugh-out-loud incident featuring an emerald green velvet gown worn by a usurper. Many of Woodman’s poems offer not only fancy but fascinating fact, such as that Tyrian purple dye used in ancient Greece “came from milked sea snails.” Among my favorite poems are the ekphrastic ones that respond to art and artists such as Leibovitz, Bonnard, and Vermeer. In ‘Caravaggio, a Story in Tenebroso’ the painter “confesses/ through drama of color, he’s/ John himself in fiery shroud . . .”  When you have Colorscapes in hand and are ready to read, you’re in for a treat. The drama of color and its beauty suffuses the book.”

–Margaret Hasse, poet, author of “Belongings” (2024) and eight other poetry collections