THE HUMMINGBIRD'S TONGUE takes the reader on a journey into the realm of the senses—to the tickle of a tree frog landing serendipitously in the palm, the tang of rosehips on the tongue, or the iridescent flicker of a dragonfly's wings. In these finely detailed poems, Graham has transformed her understanding of the complexities of biological processes into love songs for the earth—for plants and animals, rivers and mountains, light and stones. A minimalist aesthetic combines with scientific accuracy to bring the reader into sensuous contact with the natural world.

Vicki Graham lives in two places, each with its own gifts, from the pasque flowers of the Minnesota prairie to the spotted sandpipers of Oregon's coastal rivers. Author of three poetry collections, Alembic (finalist for the Minnesota Book Award), The Tenderness of Bees (Red Dragonfly Press, 2008), and The Hummingbird’s Tongue (Red Dragonfly Press, 2014), Graham has been writer in residence at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest as part of the Long Term Ecological Reflections Project and writer/witness of clear cutting at Shotpouch Creek as part of Oregon State University's Spring Creek Project. A professor of English, Creative Writing, and Environmental Studies at the University of Minnesota, Morris, she works to awaken in students a sensuous appreciation for language coupled with an acute awareness of the natural world. Her impulse to write springs from a desire to know and to protect all living things. Her muse, the earth itself.