"No one can die for us," writes Carolyn Stoloff in her majestic new book of poetry, Ah Wind. But "what wants to save itself sings." Stoloff will be saved. With a touch of Cummings/ Wright/ Merwin, painter-poet Stoloff writes about Duchamp's Selavy, about an "uncluttered time" in Capri, a "Mourning Celebration." She skews romance: "a man walks about with his flame of affection/ for the space of a held breath/ / then love's blown from its wick." She captures the simple with resonance: "before the fish man dies/ / leaving his fresh trout/ in the freezer/ leaving my mind/ still as a white river." But wisdom is what she excels in: "I'd like to be that way-/ in passage, crossing my mother's/ transparent stillness/ leaving no scar." Subtle, perfect poems that plunge toward the inevitable. "Without wounds/can a field be sown?"
-Terese Svoboda