Frost's "momentary stay against confusion" is Barbara Esch Shisler's mode of trying to make sense of life through poems that worry the riddles of getting old, family dynamics, dreams, prayer, the evening news, bees-not to mention love, death, and God

"'Love every tedious beat/ of your dear and fleeting life, ' writes Barbara Esch Shisler in her poem, 'To a Mountain.' And she takes her own advice, plainly naming a world of pleasures and pains. In her gaze, African violets are 'luscious birds in furry nests, ' and meals at the Nursing Home, 'vague purees.' The strange teachings of...