Linda Larson has been a journalist, poet, writing teacher, and a writing student in the course of her career. One thing she likes about the role of a poet is that she gets to write about what she loves. And it is evident in her body of work that she has a deep love for her subjects and the craft of writing. Larson was born and educated in the Midwest, and spent many a childhood summer in Mississippi. She graduated with an M.A. from the Writing Seminars at John Hopkins University in 1970. While in Mississippi she worked as a feature writer for The Capitol Reporter and The Jackson Advocate. She relocated to the Boston area and for five years served as an editor and contributor to Spare Change News a homeless paper based in Cambridge. In 2007, she published her first book of poetry Washing the Stones (Ibbetson Street Press).

Kindred Spirits

Linda Larson.

When you start out-living your trees

you know you are in trouble.

The palest of greens on our willow,

so big we children could hide

under its tresses,

felled by random ice floes.

The birch at the bus stop has been

pulled like a tooth,

for tearing up the sidewalk

with its ditch digger roots.

That giant tree I always looked

up to at the lake, a refuge from the rain,

always a friend, struck by lightning,

now in its ruin.

You know you are in trouble

when you start out-living your trees.

— Linda Larson

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