There is such excitement and joy in the poems of Laura Fargas a rush to embrace the earth, an exuberant "giddy greed" for life. "I like the voice, the spirit I find in her poems," says Walter McDonald. "She accepts and celebrates the rich possibilities and, even with the risks and limitations of all, insists that living on this earth is splendid." Grass the Fine Body Hairs of EarthMy shorthand for it is passion is holyWe can live inside the lilies-of-the-field text.Watching gulls startle off the groundas if hundreds of lashing wings are our native air.Breathe in wings, exhale speckled orange...

Laura Fargas writes about essential things. Her rich, short, taut, and cutting poems are filled with hard-won knowledge. They expand beyond the page and startle us with their insights.-EDWARD HIRSCH

The poems in Laura Fargas' new book are short, very short. Most are a mere seven lines--half a sonnet. Yet each bite-size morsel is as rich and satisfying as a seven-course meal. Each is filled with language both elevated and crude, observations both sacred and profane. They are served to us in ordinary time, time spent between fasting and feasting, but nourishing and green with...