William Samelson's selected poems, near and distant, are a partial expression of his thoughts throughout the forty years of his experience as a new American. If he still occasionally ventures into his past, it is to pay tribute to those dean decent, people who have fallen victims to tyranny, his family and friends that were silenced by the tragic events of World War II and the Nazi persecution. He, himself is a survivor of labor and concentration camps in the Third Reich. Through poetry, more than any other form of writing, a person bares his innermost soul. He reveals his feelings of sadness and of joy; of defeat and triumph. The very reason Samelson has chosen this form of expression is to share his self with the reader in a manner of intimacy and candor. Poetry alone permits language to reach into the mysteries of the frontier called imagination; to touch the very essence of the human spirit; to delve into Wes harsh realities with the gentleness of a lovers embrace.