Applegater., July 01, 2025, Page 4, Image 4

4 Summer 2025 Applegater
BOOK REVIEW
Poetry Corner
Habitat:
Unearthing Home
This Day
By Seth Kaplan • sethkap55@gmail.com
Seth Kaplan
N8tive Run Press
Grants Pass, Oregon
It’s a day like no other.
Shadow-and-dust-colored rabbits
in the field, alert and watchful.
Turkeys circle the forest oak, prim and attentive.
The deer you count every year peek out
from the edge of the woods for a better view
following your movements with anticipation.
BY PAUL TIPTON
My immediate email reaction after
reading former Applegate resident Seth
Kaplan’s recently published book was,
“Wow! What an impressive grouping of
words, so well-chosen and arranged into
poems, then gathered into this excellent
collection of poetry that exposes the depths
of the thinking of a great mind, and the
depth of love Seth has for his family and
the world around him. I feel like I know
so much more about him now—his life
and his background—than I knew before.”
If you didn’t already know, Seth and I
have known each other since 2016. We’ve
worked together on community projects,
and we read poetry together monthly
with the Applegate Poets. So, I could be
prejudiced, but I also know quality work
when I see it, and hear it, as a large crowd
of people did at the launch of Seth’s book
recently at Red Lily Vineyards.
Habit: Unearthing Home is such a potent
phrase, reminding me of archeology stories
of the Middle East and the unearthing of
“tells,” the mounds consisting of many
layers of the remnants of human activity,
some thousands of years old. Similarly,
Seth strips open the various layers of his
personal history, exposing them for us
to study and compare to our own. He is
constantly searching deep into that history,
yet also constantly finding his place in the
world. As he says in “This Day,” “This day
is like no other./ For it is only now you
understand/ all of this place recognizes
you/ speaks your name/ calls you home.”
All of this you notice, along with the gestures
of the clouds, and your ears perk to the sound
of raven wings from above. The thickening of the light
as the season progresses. Your eyes attune
to the play of color and texture across the meadow.
Your nose remembers a familiar scent.
This day is like no other.
For it is only now you understand
all of this place recognizes you
speaks your name
calls you home.
Seth Kaplan is a recent emigrant from Humbug Creek to Talent. He
is eternally grateful to the Applegate Poets and a sweet community of
extraordinary people who share his wonder of the Applegate Valley. Seth’s
poetry has recently appeared in The Rapids: A Literary & Art Journal
of Southern Oregon, RavensPerch,Tokyo Poetry Journal, Cobra Lily,
and Jefferson Journal. His first book of poems, Habitat: Unearthing
Home, was published by N8tive Run Press earlier this year. [See book
review, this page.]
Have a submission for Poetry Corner, either written by an Applegate resident
or about the Applegate? Email it to Applegater
poetry editor Paul Tipton at ptipton4u2c@gmail.com.
BOOKS FOR SALE
Have a happy and safe
Fourth of July!
Authors!
These poems explore both physical and
metaphysical habitats, as we read at the end
of “In the Beginning”: “Chronicling the
endless cycle/ of beginnings fully realized./
All that was ever new, unimagined/
becoming known and seen.” And if he
sees the physical “This Old Barn,” his
ruminations lead him to this: “It takes
some years to weather/ into what we
become. This hovel/ of haphazard life
honestly built,/ if not always elegantly.”
But these are not haphazard poems. They
are finely crafted and elegant story-songs
from a highly sentient being.
This is a book that is well worth the
time to read and then come back to and
read again, to connect with that “love
of precious things/ By the wish to be at
home” (Seth echoing Wendell Berry’s
words). This is a very fine first book of
poetry, and I think we should expect to
see and hear more from Seth Kaplan in
the future.
Habitat is available at Rebel Heart
Books in Jacksonville or at Bloomsbury
Books in Ashland. It is also available
for loan from the Applegate and Ruch
libraries. To order directly from him, send
an email to sethkap55@gmail.com.
Paul Tipton
ptipton4u2c@gmail.com
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