In this selec­tion of poems from thir­ty years of a dis­tin­guished writ­ing career, we see the growth of a poet’s mind, heart, and spir­it as Ostrik­er strug­gles to love ​“this wound­ed / World that we can­not heal, that is our bride.” Whether she probes the mean­ing of child­hood, fam­i­ly, mar­riage, and moth­er­hood, or art, his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, and God; whether she is cel­e­brat­ing sex­u­al­i­ty or con­fronting mor­tal­i­ty, the poet includes ​“what­ev­er I can grasp of human expe­ri­ence with­in my art — the good and beau­ti­ful, the evil and chaot­ic. I tell my stu­dents that they must write what they are afraid to write; and I attempt to do so myself.”