Refreshingly direct, heroic in their address of the issues at the heart of the human condition. A natural empathy for the ‘individual journey' is leavened by a superb mastery of her chosen craft, what Joyce calls ‘a scrupulous meanness.' Her experience of growing up in rural North Carolina along with her extensive travels in Ireland bring a unique dimension to a poetry that transcends geographic and socio-cultural divides. How she unpeels the masks that would distract us from an assessment of our true selves is quite unique in modern poetry. Sandra Ann Winters served as a lecturer of English and Irish literature at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC