"Sometimes it's one's duty simply to call attention to the special beauty that's there before us, but which, being preoccupied, we so often fail to see. Like noticing the morning sun rising like the "golden timepiece" it is, where a fleeting moment, caught in all its " fine-cut crystal" clarity, might be held and sipped like "sparkling champagne." This is what Joanne Monte offers us, with such rare sensitivity: a flower of great beauty amid the noise and clangor and violence that too often is our daily portion of dirt to eat. How often we have cried out in silence for "a language / we cannot...

"Sometimes it's one's duty simply to call attention to the special beauty that's there before us, but which, being preoccupied, we so often fail to see. Like noticing the morning sun rising like the "golden timepiece" it is, where a fleeting moment, caught in all its " fine-cut crystal" clarity, might be held and sipped like "sparkling champagne." This is what Joanne Monte offers us, with such rare sensitivity: a flower of great beauty amid the noise and clangor and violence that too often is our daily portion of dirt to eat. How often we have cried out in silence for "a language / we cannot...