Light in Light paints a river of illumined images highlighting the author's compilation of experiences, emotions, and memories as not only being grist for the poems, but illustrating a living and breathing record of the poet's personal journey. Whether it is pondering the delights of childhood with its remembrances and long imagination, or later in life, being immersed in suffering, there is witnessing and validation. These conversational poems, chock-full with confessions of faith, are immersed in magic and music, rich imagery, and well-crafted design. The poet plunges into living out the ordinary through the extraordinary, by breathing in the secrets of the peony, the magnolia, the music of the dream. The poet waits for dawn, and for hope that liberates the soul through the natural world, with its transforming spiritual impact. This collection of poems is about health to the bones, the heart, the spirit, and it is through suffering and longing that the tattered soul is unlatched and liberated. As the poet scrutinizes the world, she sees with a creative eye. She scans her past and present with a wide lens, as a noticer of details and particulars, through the poetic expression of enlightening images and metaphors. 'A certain kind of dazzle' inhabits Gerrish's endlessly lovely lines--'snug like stepping into wool slippers on Sunday morning'--yet also ravishingly lit by spirit, by storm, by magic. 'October air turning crisp like white transparent apples' or a father's voice 'like soft thunder'--line by line, phrase by phrase, metaphor by metaphor, from girlhood memories to elegy to ancestors' memories of genocide, Light in Light is one of the strongest, most delicate, visionary, and humane collections of American poetry I know. --Alicia Ostriker, author of The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog As suggested by one poem's title--'Odes and Elegies'--Deborah Gerrish captures the love of the sacred world, while mourning her losses. Here her backwards glance at her fal£ˆ