Two Trees: Poems.

New York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, 1992. Hardcover First Ed; First Printing indicated. First Ed; First Printing indicated. Near Fine in Very Near Fine DJ: Book shows only minute indications of use; binding square and secure; text clean. DJ price unclipped; mylar-protected. Virtually 'As New'. Never been opened. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. 64pp. Deckle Fore-Edge. DJ Illustration by Antonina Krass. Hardback with DJ. This fourth collection of Voight's poetry is a mix of song and sigh, wisdom and simplicity, reminiscent of the work of both Frost and Bishop. Voigt ( Claiming Kin ) is fascinated by the dualities of childhood and adulthood, mortality and immortality, humanity's fall from grace and innocence and our constant struggle to impose a sense of order, perhaps in the attempt to recover Edenic bliss. Through the use of fugue-like "variations," Voight discloses and veils--at first setting the poem at a distance, harkening, then gradually manipulating imagery to produce a range of interpretation. This works superbly in "At the Piano" and "First Song," yet much less so in some other attempts. "Soft Cloud Passing" reveals Voigt's virtuosity, her mastery of rhythm and her gift for exquisitely depicting landscapes: "The plucked fields, / the bushes, spent and brittle, the brown thatch on the forest floor / swoon beneath the gathered layers of gauze / before the earth is dragged once more into blossom." She sings, stirs and wakes the reader; she guides us in a modest, detailed manner and exposes the humble patterns humans have woven in a chaotic world. Like the wife of the blind man in "Thorn-Apple," Voight is "the first one up the path." Her appointed "task," "endless and partial," is "willed attention."