Description: Lyrical poetry about the life and loss of a beloved mother
Review Quotes:
Walker has accomplished something remarkable
in this book. Like Virgil leading Dante, she guides us into different
circles of knowing, into very human places that are exquisite. There
are questions, there are always questions, but finally, she leads us to a
satisfying reply to grief, an embrace into being temporarily and gloriously
alive."
-Alan Birkelbach, Texas State Poet Laureate
"Loretta Walker demonstrates a remarkable ability to use carefully
crafted details to ask and to answer life's most essential questions.
This collection affirms the depth of her imagination, allows her to be
both a participant and an observer-at the center and on the periphery--
of the worlds she presents, and affirms her remarkable ability to
shape those worlds into something deeply human, metaphorically rich
and yet immediate and real. This is a splendid book, and Loretta
Walker is at the height of her poetic power."
-Jonas Zdanys, Poet in Residence, Sacred Heart University
"There is a powerful voice, one that has found itself, weaving through
these poems. It sings from the streets of a "distant city," (Odessa,
Texas), where we meet the homeless man who's "skin lives in an
asylum of tattoos and the musician licking his lips "before he plays Salt
Peanuts on a trumpet." The richness, power, honesty, and soulfulness
of these poems help set Texas firmly on the map of poetry, and they
make clear that poets from this part of the country are not to be
ignored."
-Nathan Brown, Former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma