Blue Lioness

Betty S. Flowers

Death, and the lives possible on either side of it -- these are the concerns of Betty S. Flowers's fabliau-like poems and terse figurations that sometimes sound like Stephen Crane square-dancing with the Bronte sisters. "You're already living in the past," one poem warns; "the world is large enough for all our dreams /and love," another promises. This is the gift of Flowers: to make us believe that both are equally true.

Kurt Heinzelman, The Halfway Tree

I have waited a long time for Blue Lioness, and it has been worth the wait. Betty Sue Flowers not only creates poetry that is innovative and intriguing in its form but, more important, she brings us an offering of rare grace and beauty. With an exquisitely clear voice, a sublime ear, and a deep sense of how truth is found in, around, and underneath words, she illuminates and celebrates the everyday wonders of life that the rest of us so often fail to see and understand. What a gift, what a blessing.

James A. Autry, Love and Profit and The Servant Leader

The many voices of these poems reflect a range of sympathy rare in a single human being. Though written by one of America's finest editors, they appear and sound like spontaneous cries -- sometimes piercing, sometimes prophetic, sometimes no more than a murmur of regret. Sometimes the low sound of a Norn, sometimes the prayer of a mystic, they sing of both saga and pilgrimage.

Philip Bobbit, The Shield of Achilles

ISBN: 1-891386-30-1, 64 pgs, $14.95