Summer's Child

Sharon Scholl's articulation of various stage of life-childhood, adolescence, and maturity-are rendered with a painter's attention to detail. The poems in Summer's Child don't shy away from the harsh facts of aging; on the contrary, they welcome in an artful decrepitude with spirited irony, all for the sake of an acute awareness of the present moment: "...it is enough to be/...possessed by this space/this world flowing through me" (from Ocala Forest). The unique range and depth of Scholl's unswerving observations will both surprise and liberate the reader. -Judith SkillmanSummer's Child, by Sharon Scholl, brings us bright, terse, often emotionally charged reflections on youth and aging through the eyes of one returning to scenes of childhood. She conjures up past landmarks, family, and places that have all but disappeared except for what lives, moves, and breathes in the chambers of her mind. Through her sensitivity, intense focus, fresh, often startling imagery, and subtle humor she brings them to life and blows the dust off forgotten memories-"the haze of family voices/stuck forever to the wall." This force of memory together with her strength of language give us a collection of poems that will help us dust off the voices that have stuck to the walls of our own mental chambers. A memorable work. -Bonny Barry Sanders