Walpole, NH

Patricia Fargnoli [April 2006]

New Hampshire Poet Laureate

White Sea by Cleopatra Mathis (Sarabande Books, 2005). This stunning 40 poem book by one of New Hampshire's best poets swings from poems rich with the landscapes of the poet's southern childhood to those rich with oceanscapes of outer Cape Cod. Fiercely beautiful and often elegiac, what I like best about them is the way they dare to explore the meaning and location of the soul even in face of the mortality of the body.  This is one of the two best books of poems I've read in the last year.