Download or read book The Nature of Things: Poems of Flora and Protest written by Helen Matthews Lewis and published by Iris Press. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Helen Matthews Lewis is an activist, sociologist, public intellectual who has written a series of poems addressing social issues. At 94, Helen observes, "As I got too old to sit down in front of bulldozers in protest, I began writing poems of protest." Her dozen poems focus on the flowers, weeds, and flowering trees that abound in her native south and central Appalachia, from the earliest spring redbud trees and forsythia, to the intruder Bradford Pear, through summer's Queen Anne's lace, and that harbinger of fall, Joe Pye Weed. Patricia Beaver, anthropologist, watercolorist, and editor with Judi Jennings of Helen Matthews Lewis: Living Social Justice in Appalachia, has developed a series of watercolors to reflect and illustrate the sentiment of some of Helen's poems.