Kirjahaku

Reach into the heart and soul of people from every inhabited continent through sixty tour de force black-and-white portraits by Margo Davis. Under One Sky is a collection of nearly forty years of portrait making by one of the inheritors of California's photographic legacy. Esthetically powerful and convincing were words used by Ansel Adams in 1968 to describe the work of Davis (née Baumgarten) and her fellow students. Indeed, the same words can be used today in describing these portraits. As Davis says in her accompanying essay, "A portrait that has the power to truly look inward can shake us up and make us question our assumptions. Like the finest literature, a powerful photographic portrait permits us to leap into the other's mind and heart."

When culling through poems for chapbook material, the author settled on her deep-seated preoccupation with the elusive nature of time and memory. And so too does the narrator in Quicksilver, a female who functions in the present as "recall's rough teeth, its flecks of / so-what" nip unexpectedly. Gossamer-thin recollections enhance and complicate the present as her departed loved ones reappear, uninvited. As she leans in with wonder and wariness, the past clasps her ankle.