In her poem "Boardwalk," Sara Robinson describes, with her usual visual acuity and meditative suppleness, citizens of her beloved Elkton, Virginia, who are "keepers / of voices who sing of things they are / and things they are not." What is true of her generously imagined townspeople is true of Robinson herself. In this debut volume, she sings of what she is--keen historian of particular people in a particular place, a little girl growing up into visionary adulthood, sympathetic friend and family member, attentive observer of local flora and fauna, both animal and human--and of what she is not, what is not part of her immediate sensory experience but what nevertheless presents itself abundantly to her capable understanding: eruptions of violence, past and present; other landscapes, domestic and foreign; other selfscapes in people she treats with compassionate dignity. Perceptual traveler, efficient narrator, fearless experimenter, Sara Robinson gives us precious treasure here. - STEPHEN CUSHMAN, Robert C. Taylor Professor American Literature, Poetry (Univ. of VA); Author of Poetry Collections: Riffraf (2011), Heart Island (2006), Cussing Lessons (2002), and Blue Pajamas (1998).