Leaf Collection

Leaf Collection by Hannah Marshall is the winner of the 2025 Converse MFA Alumni Book Prize.

These poems present snapshots of forms we associate with nature – trees, seasons, birds, insects, mothers – but what makes it into each frame isn’t really familiar. Plants, flowers, and leaves are not the still-life subject of odes, nor are they the setting for paradise but rather a universe unto themselves, wholly indifferent to human viewers. Readers may find they need to consult an illustrated guide to trees or reevaluate their attitude towards spiders. Leaf Collection cycles through the seasons and generations in search of any meaning to be made in a world where the human protagonist is not the star of the show but rather one word in a much longer sentence. The voice within these poems finds both blessing and cruelty in nature, salvation in decay. Because “that which destroys what we’ve built is also what saves us.”