Throughout this book, a milestone in the poet's work and in the poetry of our time, Rich gathers images of our lives and focuses them blindingly in memory's "smoky mirror". As always, she maps out new territory, charting the landscapes of our lives amid the beauties and cruelties of a difficult world.
In this, her thirteenth book of verse, the author of The Dream of a Common Language and Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law writes of war, oppression, the future, death, mystery, love and the magic of poetry.