this juncture in American life and culture, but I'm not going to. What consistently amazes about this book is the quality of the craft, the luminous imagery, the engaging and engrossing characterizations, and startling wisdom. Out of the tradition of Jeffers and Frost this poet writes from her chosen landscape with subtlety and great sensitivity. Her subjects are chosen with empathy and her storytelling is deft and often rending. But it is when she comes to the title-sequence at the end of the volume that she truly hits her stride, combining her gift for narrative with a mystical reach and rhythm truly unique to contemporary poets of any stripe. Indeed, the dreamlike quality reminds one of Roethke's Far Field sequence. It is easy to praise or ridicule any book of poetry or fiction by selecting one or two lines. So I will quote liberally from the first section of this sequence "He will breathe / a loud sleep, his heels will crack with gold ./ And I will have the words pulled gently / at his mouth, and he will speak, the rim / of his hat will lift the wind, and I will have him / alive with line and light and sound, if death / is a sudden waking to some other town." There is real poetic mastery, real control--and the music is unbelievable. To not hear it, one would have to have an ear of tin. This is a poet who will last--one our children's children will