Holding Our Brokenness

"Cunningham's themes in this quarter-century gathering of poems are many and varied, but the sensibility is consistent. As always, for this author, there is religion, original takes on Buddhism, Christianity, Goddesses, pagan nature worship, animism. Trees, leaves, rocks, soil, and stones spring to life and speak in her verses. There are family stories: memories for the poet, memorable for the reader. The poet is a shapeshifter, a torch singer, for instance, a perpetual child in a magic wood, but also, sometimes, simultaneously, a venerable wise woman...The collection is a summation of her passionate concerns. There's something pure about the work, something well beyond the impulse to write poems. To read this collection is to be conducted through life but also life itself, led by an extraordinary guide."--Robert Wexelblatt, author of "Hsi-wei Tales" and "Other Places. Other Times."