While it's true that Jordan's technique seems a bit thick with "borrowings" from Charles Wright, her actual material (and her treatment of it) is wildly original. This book is shocking, heart-wrenching and, at times, almost unbearably beautiful. An urgent and necessary voice.

Judy Jordan's first book, "Carolina Ghost Woods," is a clear-eyed, gut-wrenching, soul-renewing tour de force. This book won the 1999 Walt Whitman award from the Academy of American Poets, AND the National Book Critics Book of the Year award, AND the Utah book of the year award. These awards are all richly deserved, by this fabulously rich collection of poetry.

The influence of Charles Wright is in evidence here, particularly in very long lines, a few of which have "low rider" parts of lines in effect "underlapping" part of the same line, in order to extend the line, and draw it out as a line of poetry, and in the emphasis on landscape, teeming with natural beauty. Jordan also has developed her own version of the "low rider," in which the underlapping part of the line does not underlap any part of the first part of the line, but simply drops a line below the first part of the line, and continues horizontally, where the first part of the line leaves off. But, the effect is all Judy Jordan's. These poems do something that no other book of poetry does, and no astute reader could read this poetry and fail to be deeply moved by it.

These are poems that grieve the constant occurence and effects of violence, and of loss itself. My favorite poem in this book is "Help Me to Salt, Help Me to Sorrow," which opens

"In the moon-fade and the sun's puppy breath, / in the crow's plummeting cry, / in my broken foot and arthritic joints, memory calls me..."

Calls us, and calls us, and calls us... to horrendous, unspeakable loss ... the loss of the speaker's mother, and others close to her, the loss of a safe, civilized society for a poet to grow up in, and the loss of anything so profound as faith, to be grieved and consoled by landscape, and nature's astonishing beauty, and prayer. The attention to landscape and nature, the desire for healing, and the poet's brilliant use of language all combine to create a ghostly and powerful (though partial) redemption through grief and natural consolation ...

The ONLY bone of contention I have with this book comes with the very last poem in the book, which IS the entire fourth (and last) section of the book, which is about a dream of ... nuclear radioactive devastation ... to me, this poem is not as strong as any of the other poems in this book, and it is a false note to end on ... this book could not have simply ended after the third section, it would have been too open-ended, but Jordan's end of the world ending of this book creates a disjointed effect, as in "Huh? What does this have to do with the rest of the book?" Maybe to Jordan the answer to that question is clear, but the inclusion of the last poem, and placing it at the end, in my opinion, does not answer the question. ALL of the other poems in this book are astonishing ... they just need a fitting end section of the book to complete the book.

The title alone, "Carolina Ghost Woods," is enough to draw me in, and make me want to open this book. The poems are a tour de force, and the cover art of Carolina Ghost Woods on the front cover is just beautiful ...

This book was my first exposure to this astonishing poet, and I eagerly look forward to seeing more of her startling work ...

Having said everything I need to say, I HIGHLY recommend this book of gorgeous, marvelous poetry to EVERYBODY!

By happenstance we were introduced to this wonderful volume on an airplane, sitting next to author, Judy Jordan. She allowed me to leaf through her worn copy. While reading I asked her questions that were possibly painful, so moved was I by such honest and harsh and beautiful reflection and observation. Her words wrestled me into my own honesty/my own memoirs of observing violence/ of the solace of winter and of the woods and geese. The writing does justice to itself. This book is a gift of insight. No superlatives can I use other than to say, this is one of my all time keepers.