When Wallace Stevens said, "In poetry you must love the words, the ideas, and the images and rhythms with your capacity to love anything at all," he could have been describing Ann Reed's exquisite new collection. Whether she draws upon the inspiration of the natural world or that emanating from the genius of E.E. Cummings and Emily Dickinson, Reed's language, ideas, and images are both luscious and mysterious. Her poems spring up from some great depth. This is a poetic journey that asks us to slow down and appreciate an explosive imagination that blazes across each page. It is a journey that fires up our hearts and rewards us with nothing less than wisdom and delight. --Carolyn Martin, poet, editor, and author of The Catalog of Small Contentments
The poet's subjects are art and the art of living according to eccentricities, and her manner of expressing and offering such experiences to readers is itself artful. Her poetry is intricately visual with the hum of life behind it; it leads us to the flame at the center of things-the lines are intense, precise, allusive, and full of insights of the soul. Built upon a clear knowledge of the history of the poetic form, this variegated collection of poetry engages intellect and emotion alike.
-Sakina B. Fakhri, author of The Speech of flowers and Voiceless Things and Aurelia: A Ballet in Prose
Ann Reed's collection of poems does indeed "breathe soul-life into words, words into musical patterns, musical patterns into images, all literary features into meaning." From the poem, "Dreams of making oxygen", with the image of the child "who is not where she belongs," through my favorite, "Rumi's guesthouse, Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina", where, within rubble and destruction, imagination can find 'a few hinges' for 'Wings', to the final poem, "Night Persephone's choice", where Icarus might become the figure who teaches us to accept our creative gifts that give us life, we are able to pause and take a deep breath to experience the wonder of soul making acts.
-Robert D. Romanyshyn, Ph.D., author of Leaning toward the Poet: Eavesdropping on the Poetry of Everyday Life
