Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Planet brings together the poetry of American writer Eileen P. Kennedy with the paintings of Norwegian artist Irene Christensen.  These artists met in the botanically spectacular country of Costa Rica where they devised the present book out of their common interest in natural beauty and opposition to the exploitation of the planet. The paintings depict the defiant feminine presence at the heart of the environmental justice movement. These observant poems, varying in form and content, are ekphrastic (written in response) to this captivating and powerful art. The book is many layered. International images from Norway, Costa Rica, the United States depict a planet at a pivotal moment, where wild places and refuges are deteriorating.