'Sonoma Oak Tree'

Knee-deep in owl clover,

wild mustard, white

firework wildflower

Three kinds of fern:

maidenhair, sword,

Japanese painted

Galleon-girth trunk

twisted back — a god

caught surprised

Rebecca Foust took a look at all of the beauty that Ross Valley offers and was inspired to use her environment as the source of her latest collection of poetry. God, Seed: Poetry & Art About the Natural World, a collaboration between Foust and Bay Area artist Lorna Stevens, was released earlier this month. The end result is a melding of words and art that delight in nature and remind everyone of their duty to preserve and protect it.

Foust has already published three critically acclaimed books: All That Gorgeous Pitiless, Song (winner of the 2008 Many Mountains Moving Book Prize) and Dark Card and Mom's Canoe, both winners of the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Award in consecutive years.

"I was born in Altoona, formerly one of the country's great railroad towns, located in the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania and grew up in nearby Hollidaysburg, a tiny town surrounded by farmlands and forests, quarries and strip mines," Foust wrote on her website. "After attending Smith College and Stanford Law School on scholarships, I practiced law in San Francisco for ten years, then worked as an advocate and grassroots political organizer for parents of kids with autism and other learning disorders."

Foust agreed to answer some questions about her poetry, her inspirations, and her latest book.

Patch: Do you still practice law?

Rebecca Foust: No. I retired from active practice around the time my third child was born in 1992.

Patch: While pursuing a law career, were you always writing — has this been a longtime passion?

RF: I have journaled all my life, but the idea of writing as a vocation or of publishing my writing literally did not cross my mind until it was mentioned to me by my Book Passages teacher, Linda Watanabe McFerrin. That was in 2007, the year I turned 50, and the class I was taking — still being offered — was a memoir writing class called, "Life into Literature." Linda and the writing support group she founded at Book Passage, Left Coast Writers, have been huge supporters and without Linda I'd still be scribbling in misplaced composition books.

Patch: Your official bio mentions that you support autism agencies and causes. Do you have family or friends who make this particularly important to you?

RF: One of my sons has Asperger's Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism and my experience of parenting him was the subject of my first book, Dark Card. My second book, Mom's Canoe, took as its subject matter my childhood years in western Pennsylvania.

Patch: The newest publication touches on nature and the environment. How did you come to write about this?

RF: The origin of the book was a trip made to Lorna Stevens' art studio in San Rafael sometime in 2007. Lorna is an environmental artist and I was especially moved by the art and an altered book she had created in homage to the (now extinct) huia bird in New Zealand. Lorna had taken an antique book about the huia and altered it by erasing all the text that did not refer to the bird and then adding in gorgeous, ethereal drawings about the bird. She had also created a number of sculptures from twigs and other natural materials collected from the birds' habitat. I was very moved by what I saw and from this came the first poem and the genesis of our collaboration, "Last Bison Gone." We went on to meet regularly, sometimes in my dining room and sometimes in her studio, to kick around ideas for more poems and more images. We'd been working together for more than a year before the idea of a book even came up — it was just for fun and the sheer pleasure of being inspired by each other's art. But one day Lorna came to the house with all that we'd done collected into a three ring binder and my husband said, "You've got a book there!" In the meantime, we had begun the process of submitting my poems paired with Lorna's art to a number of literary journals and had won a few prizes, been published a few times.

I'd known Lorna since we were moms together in the softball bleachers and I used to watch her working on pieces of sculpture (when I should have been watching the game).

Patch: Would Lorna's work inspire your words or would she create images based on your works?

RF: Both ways. Her book and art inspired "Last Bison Gone." Later, as I started sending her poems, she began to create works of art in response. And other trips to the studio inspired other poems; for example, the poem "Unheard" was inspired by a leather and bone sculpture she had done entitled "Herd."

Patch: What inspires you to write?

RF: Everything. But the hikes I take regularly in Marin never fail to inspire.

Patch: Who would appreciate your works?

RF: Normally I would say people interested in language or poetry, but because of the art and the subject matter, I think God, Seed has much broader appeal. Anyone who loves nature and cares about the environment, anyone who enjoys art or poetry would, we think, appreciate this book.

Patch: Do you have any ideas for your next publication?

RF: I have one unpublished manuscript and enough material for another, but I plan to wait awhile before considering trying to publish them. The last three years have been wonderful and exhilarating — I earned an MFA at the same time as the four books were written and published — but the time and travel commitment for promoting the books has been almost nonstop and has taken a toll on — what used to be — sacred writing time. After we wind down the readings for God, Seed [booked through July 2011], I look forward to spending more time writing and teaching.

To order 'God, Seed' visit tebotbach.org or spdbooks.org and for other information, visit rebeccafoust.com or lornastevens.com.