Richard Grove is the Poet Laureate of Brighton, Ontario, Canada. He is a writer, editor, and publisher. If the tallest tree in the grove also casts the longest shadow, then here in this Grove of Poetry professor Miguel Ángel Olivé Iglesias shines a light on the poems of Richard (Tai) Grove, a light of intelligence and reverent insight that illuminates that dark reflection at the very source of all meaning. Richard Grove is by any measure a tall poet. His earliest poems which began in cathartic anger, moved through that prickly thicket of young man's emotion yet came to light in celebration of the spirit, the heart, the body and the mind. Professor Olivé moves as a luminous scholar might whose mind is a gentle breeze that barely stirs the leaves, but he gives us the chiaroscuro, that lovely dapple of light and shade. Richard Grove gives us the heartwood and the bark, the deep root and the lofty air, the earth and the sky, the body and the soul made available in the best of his poetry. John B. Lee Poet Laureate of the city of Brantford, Norfolk County and CCLA
