Laura Blatt’s keen sensibility can frame a moment in a circle of color and light. Her poetry invites us into the gentle routines of family, the woven warmth of friendship, and the bright revelations of nature, gathered while “walking through the woods or listening to her garden.” She enchants us with her tender child-time dreams “to sing like frogs” and “gobble up books.” She encourages us to taste the toothsome legacy of her grandmother’s “soup of peas, cabbage and kasha.” We feel the grace and bold truth of a poet who writes, “I am the matriarch now / family maven / keeper of secrets / weaver of spells / dispenser of arcane wisdom,” which she most certainly is! —Margaret Rooney, poet, author, A Wild Rain Memories Lost and Found bears witness to a life well-lived. Laura Blatt combines interior landscapes (friends, relatives, people she meets) with expansive descriptions of nature. Using vivid imagery, she invites readers to value flora and fauna. Her birds, in particular, make her book worth reading. These are careful poems that allow us to see our world differently. There’s some anger in a few poems, and she shows us that art can help us order and direct our anger. Other poems resonate with joy and love. —Susan E. Gunter, Professor of English Emerita, author, Over the Village Laura Blatt writes with skill, candor, compassion, and poignancy. About her sister: “when chaos rules / when bands of confusion bind / when earth deadens / you summon my courage with song.” She helps us recall family gatherings of our own with the simple phrase: “flavored with love and leftovers.” Her remarkable relationship with nature inspires her poetic voice. The reader is with her when she sees “rocks shaped like skulls, spires, torpedoes / a chaos of boulder.” Or about a white-tailed hawk, “vast blue space before her / no questions, no ancient pain / only a call to fly.” Laura Blatt invites us to fly with her; for this reader, the journey has been amazing! —Jo Ann Smith, poet, author, Curveballs
