"Linda Bierds has always shied away from the easy indulgences of confessional poetry, turning her attention instead to the things that unite us in our common humanity - art, science, music, history - and bringing alive people (some famous, some little-known) who have made contributions to these spheres. These new poems are no less vital, transporting the reader from Renaissance to modernday Venice and on to the moon; from anatomical sketches to primitive mapping and early naturalism - and returning always to the empathy that guides her work." "These tightly woven poems are linked organically through repeating imagery, reflected and refracted through the prism of Bierds's singularly rich imagination. Her language itself communicates just as much as this visuality; as Stanley Plumly has said, "The autobiography of her imagination would only be half as intense were the writing itself less beautiful and clear, less perfect to pitch.""--Jacket.