LEAF SHEEP

Hi there.

First things first. Leaf sheep are real—microscopic animalcules— that live in the ocean, eat algae, and are the only animal that can transform sunlight into food. They are metaphors. Or not.

So. This is a Substack of poems about animals—and us.  

Maybe, once upon a time, you read a poem and felt the trap door to your soul spring open. You’re still hungry for that experience.

Or maybe you like animals, but you aren’t as sure about poems. (You’re not alone.)  

You’ve found them stuffy, or overwrought, or three in a row in the New Yorker didn’t make sense, or didn’t relate to you. You thought, “I don’t get it.”  (Hint: there possibly wasn’t an “it” to get and the poet just wanted you to go for the ride.) Now, if anything looks suspiciously like a poem, you skip it. But you’ve read this far, and you’re giving it another go.

Whatever your circumstance, here you are and welcome.

What I love: a poem is a curiosity of words, its own singular world. Not all poems will speak to you, but the ones that do can release a small firecracker in your solar plexus, or a cathartic stab. The best poems will be worth the journey. 

Some poems will look like a hat, like the first drawing of the narrator in The Little Prince:

And some will reveal themselves really to be a boa constrictor digesting an elephant:

Drawings of hats are perfectly fine. Drawings of boa constrictors digesting an elephant, even better.

These posts look at how animals live among us. How we live among them. 

People are animals. We forget that sometimes. And we are all linked chains in the ecosphere. We forget that sometimes too.

Some poems will be mine, from Fourth World;  Nightly, At the Institute of the Possible; or Loosestrife for Porcupines. Mixed in will be favorites by masters that, coming across them after a long while, spark a frisson of pleasure or nostalgia. There will be sloths and snails and dogtails, owls, capybaras, bunnies and vultures…and (you might have already guessed) porcupines. Elephants, yes. Boa constrictors, not yet. I should remedy that.

This is an experiment, these poems on Substack. We’re all moving so fast, propelled by the avalanche of news and information, I don’t know if we can stop snowballing enough (I too am hurtling down the mountain,) to linger for a moment in our inboxes, or online, with capybaras sitting zazen in their hot spring, or to caress a pony with James Wright in Rochester Minnesota, or to daydream with Jane Mead as she passes a truck full of chickens on a highway at night. This is an invitation to give it a try.

ABOUT ME

I’m a person who re-invents herself. I’ve been a competition swimmer; a classical pianist, teaching and performing chamber music; a political activist; and an equestrian schooling high-level dressage with Olympic team members. My oddest job was, briefly, a courier for stallion semen. After a major course correction and life-altering testing with The Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation, I dedicated myself to becoming a writer. 

10,000 hours later, I’ve produced short stories and prize-winning poems published widely, two novels, three poetry book collections, and a book-length work of creative non-fiction. I’ve collaborated as a developmental editor with several hundred manuscripts in multiple genres, and midwifed poetry collections for wonderful poets through Hedgerow Books, several of which were finalists for national awards.

Loosestrife for Porcupines, Blue Light Book Award finalist, is available March, 2026. And Sibylline Press will be publishing two linked novels in 2027 and 2028, the first about a boy searching for himself among the islands of British Columbia, while the second is a prequel about his grandmother and step-grandfather, an unlikely pairing, prostitute and gay nuclear chemist, in Seattle during the Great Depression and Second World War. www.dmgordon.com

What a subscription to Leaf Sheep gets you.

One not-too-long poem in your inbox every week or two—not too often—from the likes of Galway Kinnell or Elizabeth Bishop…or me. Might be a sonnet about a sloth, or a poem with a dog in the prow of a motorboat on Lake Cuomo, sniffing around for happiness. Might be Kermit explaining how it’s not easy being green. (I’m still working through copyright permissions and protocols.) Each, an invitation to pause for whimsy, wisdom, wit, or wonder. Short and sweet, a minute or two. Lots of white space. Promise.

I’m here. 

For a decade, I ran a weekly public forum on poetry. Every Monday night, people of all walks were drawn to the library—mailmen, craftspeople, veterans, French Renaissance professors, and homeless folk—and we’d read a few poems together. We’d comment about what stayed with us, what we loved or newly understood. All voices equal, scholarly or intuitive. It was about listening, not arguing. There were no wrong observations.  All questions were good— an amazing confluence. Wouldn’t that be great if that happened again here? 

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF…

…scrolling, wanting something, you’re not even sure what—if a poem could catalyze words plus sunlight into glucose for the soul, Leaf Sheep might be a place for you.

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