Description: Through compelling terrain both earthy and spiritual, sundry lives emerge overlaid with mystery. Vivid, searching poems like these elicit our shared sorrows, hopes, sensibilities. And horizon-wide, they evoke compassion wherein vulnerability is our light.
Review Quotes:
This is a powerful and perceptive collection, not to be missed. --Ann Howells, author of Under a Lone Star, and editor of Illya's Honey
"Meet me between the slashed syllables of in/ex/plic/a/ble," poet Loretta Diane Walker writes, "where even the dripping faucet wants/ to be the Rio Grande . . . singing across borders." Through compelling terrain both earthy and spiritual, sundry lives emerge overlaid with mystery. Vivid, searching poems like these elicit our shared sorrows, hopes, sensibilities. And horizon-wide, they evoke compassion wherein vulnerability is our light.
--Laurie Klein, author of Where the Sky Opens
What is striking about Desert Light is that the "traditional" Southwest poems are human, i.e. "a chorale of clouds," "night shuts its ears," "the wind walks quietly," "the sky is a woman," while the poems that are written in first person or second person are more organic. You would think it would be the other way around, but this combination becomes an elegant melding of wide-open spaces and interiors. Some of the poems are heartbreakingly tragic but written with such finesse, they catch you by surprise and take your breath away. For every little girl trying to grow up with one shred of dignity and self-esteem, "When I Thought I was Pretty" will give you a name for the lady whose "savage smile could peel skin from stones." "A Dear John Letter On Behalf of My Dignity" should be required reading for everyone. Walker has knocked it out of the park with this quiet, yet powerful and lovely group of poems. You will not be disappointed.
--Tobi Alfier, Co-editor, Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review
So you think you've heard the moon described every way possible and you've read every sky description possible. Well, you are wrong. Tuck into this achingly beautiful work by Walker, where the moon can pole vault, and the sky is a woman. A stunningly wonderful piece of work by a talented poet.
--Michelle Hartman, Author of The Lost Journal of my Second Trip to Purgatory and editor, Red River Review