Brace's Cove

Reading this book is like taking a long, leisurely walk alongside a man of remarkable intelligence who never flaunts what he knows or boasts about his sensitivity. Yet his poems are intimate, candid, involving, and easy to understand without ever simplifying the complexities and perplexities of a life lived with eyes wide open. Some of the poems -- "Caitlin," for example, and "Intensive Care" -- are shadowed by death and mortal illness, but Featherstone does what only the best of poets can do: he shapes experience so that its container is beautiful and subtle, and that, instead of being depressing, is a form of exaltation.