Loose on the Leash

by Ann Farley

6:20 AM. Two thirds of the year morning light is dim or barely there. In this early hush, a woman and her dog walk through neighborhood and park. They encounter owls and herons, marathon runners and skateboarders, fellow walkers and a beaver family. Loose on the Leash details the many rewards of walking a dog: peace to clear one’s mind, connections made and memories unearthed, surprise encounters and chance conversations, curious T-shirt messages, coyote sightings and unwavering loyalty.

Early Praise

Ann Farley’s Loose on the Leash delights the reader with early-morning observation and surprise encounters along the path she walks daily with her dog, Ella. Writing of life and death, loss and belonging, Farley inspires us to wake and open with each step we take. Sometimes I wish / there was no such thing as time / just gradations / of shadow and light, she writes in “daylight savings time,” where footsteps meet memory.

—DEBRA ELISA, author of You Can Call It Beautiful

Loose on the Leash brings us into that liminal space of first light, the people and creatures she meets while walking her German shepherd, Ella, often going out before dawn. Part prayer, part meditation, part chronicle, she infuses these musings with sometimes playful, sometimes reverent language, attentive to the ways humans and animals share space. She shows us a great blue heron jabbing at anything that moves: / wood frogs, spotted salamanders, / garter snakes striped yellow and orange. And how the swoop of a great horned owl, a vision / in white, evokes the possibility of angels. The way being in the natural world with her dog allows her to experience time and space differently (only now / again / now), and then she warmly invites us to go there with her.

—SUZY HARRIS, author of Listening in the Dark

Farley’s daily dog-walking ritual with her German Shepherd companion opens doors to unexpected encounters with nature, memories, and humans bearing gifts. These gifts of conversation and circumstance catapult readers into historical time, other cultures, and the unique milieu of a diverse American neighborhood. Woven through these lyrical walks is Ella a powerful benign creature whose life symbolizes the best in dog—a connector and healer who unites hearts even when the world seems misshapen and broken.

—SHER SCHWARTZ, author of The Beautiful One’s Ark

 

About the Author

Ann Farley, an only child of two only children, learned at an early age to entertain herself by making up stories and playing with words. Her poems have appeared in Peregrine, Timberline Review, Third Wednesday, Gobshite Quarterly, Willawaw, Verseweavers, and others. Her first chapbook, Tell Her Yes, was a finalist in The Poetry Box Chapbook Prize and published in 2022.

She loves travel, anywhere and everywhere, from local trails to the tip of South Africa, and enjoys photography, watercolor painting, a good book and a cup of tea. She lives in Beaverton, Oregon with her kind and patient husband, Kevin, and their exuberant German Shepherd, Ella.

Instagram: @farley2324

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