Working prodigiously over the past half-century in several genres-verse, the prose poem, hybrid poetic forms, fiction, memoir, the critical or scholarly essay, translation from Russian, from Spanish-Doreen Stock is one of the secret originals of American poetry. Creating independently outside academic institutions or identity-centered movements while embracing Jewish tradition as a grounding ethos, publishing widely but obscurely in little magazines and small-press books, she has produced a steadily growing and branching body of work that is authentically and distinctively her own, and timelessly beyond current trends. In this generous selection from privately printed chapbooks of recent years the mature poet is revealed in her various voices: spiritual seeker, religious sage, daughter, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, traveler, lover, political critic, compassionate protester, student of current affairs, world questioner. Her tone ranges from wonder and awe to grief and disbelief, her acute sensitivity and active consciousness constantly engaged in earthy yet transcendent realms of perception. The pleasures of sensory awareness and the joys of human interconnection permeate even the most tragic of Stock's insights. An aura of mystery suffuses every sentence. The depth of experience rendered here defies description except in its own words recording an ever-elusive understanding. Alternately lyrical, prosaic, magical, dreamlike and experimental, these writings are the rich harvest of a constantly inquiring, intelligent and restless heart. -Stephen Kessler, author of