The Water Books (Autumn House Poetry) - Softcover

"In Judith Vollmer's fourth collection, The Water Books, water pours, flows, holds and is held in at least one third of the volume, which contains seventy pages of poems. Water slips through spaces unboundaried, privileged in this way that the short life spans of gnats and humans are not. As river, it gives home to otters, gets polluted through what wrongly enters it, serves as 'death-trap water knots' for swimmers and rafters unaware, and offers a place to walk into and be sanctified. As wetland, estuary, bubbling spring, and aquifer, water cleanses, and interfaces between river and sea. In cisterns buried beneath dirt and rubble accumulated through centuries over ancient cities, water endures, still cool."--Susan Shaw Sailer "Cerise Press" (1/1/2013 12:00:00 AM) In Judith Vollmer s fourth collection, The Water Books, water pours, flows, holds and is held in at least one third of the volume, which contains seventy pages of poems. Water slips through spaces unboundaried, privileged in this way that the short life spans of gnats and humans are not. As river, it gives home to otters, gets polluted through what wrongly enters it, serves as death-trap water knots for swimmers and rafters unaware, and offers a place to walk into and be sanctified. As wetland, estuary, bubbling spring, and aquifer, water cleanses, and interfaces between river and sea. In cisterns buried beneath dirt and rubble accumulated through centuries over ancient cities, water endures, still cool. Susan Shaw Sailer, Cerise Press"

Judith Vollmer's The Water Books does a stunning job of blending natural images within an urbane setting. Whether it be Pittsburgh, a bus, a phone conversation Vollmer's attention to detail is unparalleled.