"Night Beyond Black pushes through the limits of the given--color, light, natural world, experience--to question what lies beyond with level-headed intelligence and, always, kindness. Edstrom's language is devoid of pretension yet elegant and precise, like the inside of a beehive. She shares with Stanley Kunitz a way of perception that is equal measures playfulness and gravitas, rooted on the soil around them, open-canopied. Almost hidden by the beauty of these poems, there is a small history of the American West of small farmers and quiet small-town folk--their love of nature and...