I bought Deborah's first book, The Size of Happiness, at the West Chester Poetry Conference and read it while flying home. Since I was bumped from a flight, I had lots of time to read and therefore finished it on the trip. As soon as I got home, I had to write Deborah a fan letter. I had enjoyed the book so thoroughly that it was hard even to tell her my favorite poems, there were so many.
Though I hear her referred to as a New England poet (and there are some poems that could justify that designation) she strikes me as being much more cosmopolitan than that term implies. There is an enormous range to her subjects, in time, space, and literatures. She has a questing and questioning spirit that refuses to accept the easy answers, even from herself. Some of her poems are wry, some moving. I feel a sense of Virgil's "the tears of things" behind some of her poems, but faced in a tough-minded rather than sentimental way. The poems are clearly worded, but without sacrificing depth.
Susan
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