All of the books from the BYU Women's Conference are wonderful, uplifting, entertaining, and surprisingly candid.

Each of these poems chronicles the luminescence and the darkness of every day life. This collection also embodies a spiritual core, one that speaks to the complexity of the end of this century. Grace and forgiveness are earned through the unrelenting honesty of these lines. It is the sacred in these poems which will make it the collection and Howe the poet of our time. The discipline of Howe's writing, of her thinking, require a delibrateness of craft. Long lines and short bring the conversation of the everyday to a precision often missed in contemporary American poetry. This collection will speak to so many people: writers, those who rarely read to those who would never read poetry, to the finest craftsmen, and anyone who seeks the sacred in life.

Marie Howe is a poet you want to get to know. The surrealism in her poetry is held together with ribbons of reality and warmth. She knows what she is talking about and Death is a spirit and nothing to be afraid of. "The Promise" was my personal favorite. In all her poems she allows you to see beyond the window, into the outside and into the woods of the soul. Her poetry will wake up the dreams with the kiss of a single word. When you read the poems, they become you.

People have often told me that hearing the word "poetry" sets off high school nightmares of having to "interpret" or decode literature. Such reactions never cease to disappoint me, considering everyone first experiences language through poetry, the playfulness of words. The innate melodies and rhythms that those first tunes bring to life in our early years are revived in Marie Howe's second book of poetry "What the Living Do". Striving for relentless clarity of language and image, Howe has written a painful celebration of "what the living do" after the death of a loved one. These verses, however, are by no means juvenile, confronting head-on the life and death of her brother John as well as the death of poet Jane Kenyon. And amid the suffering Howe's poetry insists there is room for love, for making love. Whatever loss that the poet endures because of her brother's death is countered (complemented perhaps) by her ability to be intimate and inexorably human amid the living. The poems are powerfully memorable, pushing for an aesthetic that is personal yet connective, accessible yet multi-layered. Writing in a language that is uniquely hers and yet entirely ours for the taking, Marie Howe's "What the Living Do" instructs us on how she has found that both praise and misery can undoubtedly inhabit the same swirling space.

I went through two bookshelves of poetry at my local bookstore, and two hours later came away with just this one book. I read a poem each night before going to sleep. The writing is intimate and airy, refreshing when life has become too narrow.

Sparse, beautiful writing--the theme of redemption is potent in nearly every poem--everyone must read this!!!

"What the angels left" is clever while "Death,the last visit" is so touching and puts forth a new idea of death.At the beginning of her career she really began with a bang.

On a world not that different from our own a technology has risen and collapsed taking a civilization with it. The inhabitants can no longer make use of their spaceports and travel to the stars. Instead, there is a religion based on the belief that someday the Sky Dwellers will return. Others believe that they will not and do not exist while still others, the Knowledge Brokers attempt to resurrect the dead technology. Not only is the widespread use of mental telepathy by the inhabitants common, so are parts and remnants of the lost civilization. As an experiment the Knowledge Brokers have managed to activate a sound-sender (kind of radio) and have sent out a message.

High above, there are three moons that orbit this world of permanent fall coloring and the message has been heard. The Spiral Collective has been surveying the area and has heard the message. They send a ship to the planet's surface to find the source of the signal. However, the mission quickly becomes secondary as the ship crashes, making Leah the sole human survivor.

The crash was seen for miles and she is quickly captured by troops loyal to the Crown. Matvar and his troops believe that the old legends have proven true and the "Starborn" or "Sky Dwellers" truly exist. While a dead body would be easiest to deal with, live specimens also work, and Leah is taken prisoner for transport to the capital city, Oshune. Their arrival will validate their religion and expose the non-believers for what they are.

Proof will destroy the heresy, led by Valad. Valad and his followers do not believe the ancient legends or religion and seek to destroy it every chance they get. Valad, as magistrate to the area, half-heartedly supports the Crown while at the same time seeking his own twisted pleasure. One pleasure he desperately wants is Thiele.

Thiele is one of the Learned Ones of the Knowledge Brokers. Her mental telepathy abilities are a bit stronger that others and she knows what Valad wants with her. She has no intention of being captured and forced to spend time with Valad. After discovering Leah, captive among the troops she decides that Leah needs rescuing from them. Thiele knows what Leah is and wants her to get away and return to her people.

But the rescue quickly runs awry, and Leah finds herself chased by Valad and his men as well as Matvar and his followers. Along the way, she will learn much and still wonder just how far she can trust Thiele and her people. But, alone, on an alien world with little hope of rescue by your own, you have to trust someone.

This is a very good novel with strong characters and vivid descriptions. Despite the fact that the five authors collaborated on this project together, it does not have the usual hallmarks of such an effort. The work flows seamlessly from chapter to chapter, scene to scene and it simply is not discernable who wrote what. An excellent novel and a very enjoyable read that I would recommend to almost anyone that has an interest in science fiction.