In her first book of poems, Emily H. Axelrod sees clearly the grime, the grief, the danger of the world around her, but her vision is essentially a redemptive, celebratory one. Her poems are informed by memories of childhood: “her cheekagainst a horse’s warm neck;” racing to a waterfall, her body “young and lithe / as flexible as the silver birches…” We are offered lovely moments including epiphanies from the poet’s later years and from her travels, creating a series of poems that find beauty in the midst of turmoil. One isuplifted by these poems, transported as the poet herself is transported by a rocking rowboat that becomes for the moment “a seagoing cradle. Reading Emily Axelrod’s poems, one is surprised by a language that surrounds the normal, the usual with the glow of a poetic light.”
– Ashley Bryan, Islesford, Maine
Ashley Frederick Bryan (July 13, 1923 – February 4, 2022) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. an artist, storyteller, teacher and sculptor.