The gorgeous reproduction of Thomas Cole's "The Voyage of Life: Manhood" on the cover lets the reader know right away that this work connects with all the writers who pushed themselves to try to define America in poetic terms. Echoes of 19th-century transcendentalism resound in the circular structures of "A Still Prayer." The epic structure of Ross's journey resonates with Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," Hart Crane's "The Bridge," Jean Toomer's "Blue Meridian," Gertrude Stein's "The Making of Americans." However, Ross takes the reader down interior channels previously unexplored and in the process, we create a new frontier forged of our own minds.--Susan Smith Nash
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #4,
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Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1995.