Then and Now

Ori Z. Soltes' book of poems reflects on different aspects of love-parent-to-child, child-to-parent, sibling-to-sibling, spouse-to-spouse-and its many complications, by sweeping through a range of times, places, and circumstances. That range offers encounters with important works of literature and art and the occasional historical character in the Greek and Roman tradition, with key figures in the Bible, with obscure medieval characters-like Astrolabe, the son of Heloise and Abelard-and with everyday people who were or are part of the poet's own life. As we read through these sensitively crafted works we recognize, in fact, that the heroic figures celebrated in history, literature, and art are everyday people, with everyday hopes, concerns, ambitions, problems, questions, and most of all, desires, hidden beneath the surfaces of texts and images that have been admired for centuries.