Her Place in These Designs

Rhina P. Espaillat draws on her life experience as a young child in the Dominican Republic as well as her talent as a poet in Her Place in These Designs, an anthology of rhyming, rhythmical poems that blend fluid pitch and evocative lyrics to illuminate the universal issues of women's lives. Applying traditional verse forms with a natural knack for expression, Her Place in These Designs is a collection to be savored and contemplated at length, whether one reads a few poems at a time or all of them at once. "Item": Escaped: one poem, / winged, half worded, / too soon flowered, / starred and birded, // simile'd / and metaphored. / Warning: author / badly gored. // Cornered, poem / will spring to bite. / No threatening moves, / no sudden light; // keep your distance; / stay behind it. / Call this number / if you find it.