Salt, 1991

'While, as she reminds us, 'We have not the eyes for darkness / and our ears are poor cousins / to those who measure the night, ' Renee Ashley can tune our ears to the thoughts of a wounded sparrow, to the sibilance of snow on stone, even to the song rocks make as they thaw in spring. Through her keen portrayal of 'The Way Birds Must Live' or her glorious meditation on 'The Way Women Sweat, ' the corruscating, multifaceted title poem 'Salt, ' or the pungent narrative in 'Skunk, ' Ashley wakes us to an intricate, enthralling world behind, beneath, beyond the one we thought we knew, alive with particulars, laces with compassion, luminous with humor.' -Donald Finkel, citation for the Brittingham Prize