Here she achieves great range, exploring the qualities of love in a variety of relationships rooted in the past and the present. Her poems move from the familiar - the parent, the child, the lover - to the extraordinary - including a sequence on the Blues singer Bessie Smith. The poems are poignant or bitter-sweet, sometimes joyous and often very funny. Poems about racism, deafness, domestic violence, and gay sexuality - Here is a writer - whose voice deserves to be heard in America"" - Feminist Bookstore News.