Poetry. Women's Studies. In her luminous book, Laurie Filipelli remakes the constellations of a modern life. Her poems re-draw the lines between the parts of the world, helping us to see there are no divisions between planting a plumbago and watching the passage of hateful legislation, no space between grief for a lost father and the wonder of what he's told the speaker: 'the whale's veins are so wide we could swim / to her heart.' By looking so tenderly and incisively at the actual experience of a life, Filipelli makes us see our own differently.--Sasha West Flying together, flying apart: in these poems the self is as elastic as a flock of birds cutting across the winter sky. Here, among carousel and cave, where 'the bigger you spin, the lighter you fall, ' we are invited into the world of mothers and daughters, fathers and grandfathers, a geography whose inhabitants bear steadily forward while always casting a long look back. As our leader advances, in an outstretched hand she presents to us the artifacts of her explorations--mirrors, keys, paper dragons--reminding us all the while to accept the dangers of discovery as well as its myriad blessings. The wisdom within these pages is hard-won and generously offered, the speaker lifting her face skyward no matter the conditions at her feet. 'The future is a ballad sung in your name, ' Filipelli promises, and we want to--we do--believe her.--Laurie Saurborn