Slow Twitch: A Collection of Poems

Tillie Olsen said, "It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched." It has taken me years to consent to that baptism. Writers who have helped me along the way have been Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, Richard Wilbur, Linda Pastan, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser and Naomi Shihab Nye.

When I understood that my penchant for expecting the worst had blinded me to my capacity for joy, I found poets to show the way. Barbara Hamby...