Betsy Sholl

“…Antonio Machado used to say the capacity for wonder is the source of true poetry, and this is the magical ingredient I find in Betsy Sholl… All, or almost all, of Sholl’s poems are coming from a center whose discipline of attention (in a spiritual sense) and discipline of language coincide. This means she is working… where the richest ore lies.” —Luis Ellicott Yglesias, New Boston Review “The collection is distinctly American, the language, the voice, the way she sets her private dreams and memories against a flat indifferent landscape…The poems sing a familiar song, but the particulars are her own, without self-pity or excessive egoism.” —Fanny Howe

“Betsy Scholl’s poems are visual and fast moving, the whole book shot through vivid imagery…I was so dazzled by the gorgeousness of the writing…” ―Stride Magazine “As she upends perspectives, her powers of synthesis, making god’s-eyes of unlike threads, are near deific.” ―Portland Phoenix “Maine laureate Betsy Sholl is out with a seventh book of poetry that’s filled with soaring word pictures…the ideas of beauty versus darkness, grit versus comfort.” ―Portland Press Herald