Dog Island and Other Florida Poems

the long version

The title poem of this book records a sojourn to a bridgeless small island off the Florida Panhandle. Dog Island provides a quiet respite where Miami poet-artist Laurence Donovan contemplates the sea, sand, and sky and transforms them into words and etchings. Near the end of ‘Dog Island,’ before he must return on “the drumming/Roads south,” refreshed by his island sojourn, the poet watches the sea “in its empty vastness.” Donald Justice, in his foreword, calls Donovan “doubly gifted” in both his poetry and his art. This volume presents both, the latter in his etchings. He was also known for his linocuts, represented here by the small scorpion at the end of the book.