Dramatic and lyrical poetry of the classroom experience in a high school of largely minority students. The "minority" aspect is sometimes and in some ways incidental and sometimes not so. After all, any way you cut it, it's still high school, with all the humanity and absurdity that the term implies. Part two of the collection, Moments of Balance, explores the tensions between inner and outer conflicts, reacting to a world at perpetual war with itself and sometimes striking zen notes particularly in appreciations of nature and music.