Four different strains of speculative intelligence. Four lifetimes sorted. The same years captured by different sensibilities—all with that certain ache that is poetry. What I like is the rich mix of memory & public commentary. Annie Menebroker’s lyrics bursts, for example—the cogent self-questioning that turns to larger issues. Kathryn Hohlwein’s spiritual sense in poems that are moving & insightful, always emotionally right. It’s not by chance that the four poets have integrated their gifts & their life-work. From her practice as an art critic, Victoria Dalkey seems to take her vision & feel for order, her wit & sense of tonal shift. Viola Weinberg recaptures, exuberant & expansive, in the know, the challenges of working in the media & being a mother. Her intense & dramatic poem, “Arthur’s Seat, the Easy Way,” about climbing Scotland’s almost mythic height, in spite of her health & physical limits, is about the transcendence that is the task for all four poets.

                                             Dennis Schmitz

                                             Susan Kelly-DeWitt