"I wanted to salvage
        something from my life, to fix
  some truth beyond all change"—Ellen Bryant Voigt

The Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, tells of a birch tree where, Sweeney-like, he spent much of his time as a farm boy. When the farm was sold, the tree was felled in the name of efficiency, but its image haunts Heaney and he can imagine, when he dies, his soul following its vanished roots into the earth. Poetry cannot undo the work of axes; it seldom restores lost loves or undoes hurt. But poets have always been drawn into their pasts, especially to decisive scenes of joy and pain. The four poets under consideration, each very different, and each of whom happens to be a woman, all have recently written distinctive books which treat, among other things, compelling events in their own or their families' histories. Though their approaches range from the reticent to the confessional, they share a common commitment not to let the past sink into oblivion without salvaging a memorably humane understanding.