Susan Baller-shepard

Doe Susan Baller-shepard

From the title, Doe, Susan Baller-Shepard's metaphor of a female deer moves in and out of this collection, appearing in the periphery, then moving on as Baller-Shepard mines memories of life on the prairie. From a variety of voices, Doe presents interior and exterior landscapes, from caged zebra finches or a sick child, to a family farm sale, or the sound of owls at night. With the step-step, pause, step-step cadence of a deer's approach, Baller-Shepard's poetry collection advances from the personal to the mystical. Her poems advance with that step-step, pause, step-step noting other creatures in the woods (women, men, children, bees, mayflies, pheasants) and bigger concerns beyond the woods (the Last Holocaust Act of WWII, religion, wars, citizenship, God), moving deftly between the natural and spiritual world like a deer moves along the borders where the natural world and the manicured world meet.