Norine Spurling's "poems" reflect a lifetime of attention to experience, to feeling, to thought, which she shapes into words. Her luscious images are color drenched: "milk stained sky," "carmine wash," "bird calls/ a turquoise song," "fading sunset's garnet cast." She uses myth, travel, people to probe for their meanings. Her poems of loss break the heart, though she is unafraid to collect those who passed in the honest assessment of all they meant to her. She surprises the reader with poems that startle and make new. We can understand the "vinegar bones of yesterday" though no one has quite...