Extending the Shade

By Betty Sue Flowers

These are poems of the myth of life:
"I think of the poems in the book as moments of a myth that continues to develop and that myth is the story of my life. A poem is a moment in myth." (Flowers)

The poetry in this collection comes from the life of an innovator, an educator on a grand scale and a woman who holds art close to the center of being. They are poetic visualizations which speak reality into existence. Some are set in West Texas, where the poet grew up. Many come from the journey which has taken this poet all over the world.

"Flowers is an English professor and director of the Plan II honors program at the University. . . Strong female images are interwoven throughout poems such as 'Mary and Martha,' 'The Prince and the Frog' and 'The Older Woman Speaks of Love.' Grandmothers, mothers, daughters and goddesses all figure conspicuously in her poems . . . Her poetry is an insistence on that which is beautiful, and passionate, and excellent in life. She weaves together a lot of knowledge about contemporary myth with an earthy and very gracious Texas sense of hospitality."
Martha FitzSimon, "The Daily Texan"

Cover art by Harriet Hyams, 84 pgs., $14.95, ISBN: 0-911051-51-1,