Feller: Poems by Denton Loving
Mercer University Press, August 2025

Using the natural world as both mirror and lens, the poems in Denton Loving’s third collection of poetry explore themes of connection, longing, and the pursuit of a fully lived life. They celebrate “the light that enters the woods and cleanses the wound.” They seek the sacred order in everything, from the phases of the moon down to the delicate colors of a moth’s wings. And yet, they are not cloistered away from the human struggle — whether with nature, with each other, or with the self. Feller envisions our environment and landscape, not as backdrop or ornament but as revelatory forces illuminating the hidden chambers of the self. At once deeply rooted in his Appalachian soil and universally resonant, Feller confirms Loving’s position among those rare poets who transmute a sense of place into profound human truth.

“Loving makes lyric sense of complex issues in poem after poem in Feller, with his special blend of eco-poetics and earthly reason.” — Elaine Sexton, Site Specific

“At once timely and timeless, Feller is a superbly striking and essential book.” — Matt W. Miller, Tender the River

“Reading Feller is a transformative, joyful, loneliness-alleviating experience.” — Annie Woodford, Where You Come From Is Gone