White Ermine Across Her Shoulders has all the elements expected by readers of Ethel Mortenson Davis's poetry. The lines are highly imagistic and intense. Descriptions of the earth's beauty are intermingled with comments, sometimes caustic, about the human experience. Often a music rises that is both emotional and filled with language and insights that remain in the memory long after the book has been put down. This, Davis's second volume, speaks eloquently about Kevin Michael Davis, her son who died of cancer in 2010 in Poughkeepsie, NY, and touches on other family relationships, making some of the poems more personal than those she has published before. These poems are balanced with an understanding of the universe and all of its creatures that encompasses both delight and wisdom. What makes this collection appealing is an intellectual depth that resonates, in the way of Emily Dickenson, with the imagistic and emotional core that has always been a hallmark of Davis's poetry.
