-Henry Hart, English Dept., College of William and Mary; Virginia Poet Laureate, Emeritus; author of To read these poems of displacement and defiance in "Who Are You from Home?" is to be immersed in language so rich, so unexpected and emotionally gripping that we're conveyed to a world foreign but intimately welcoming, as Mary "Maryśka" Haines explores the Polish roots of her past. She weaves words from a country not her own but one that lives in her blood with the sorrows and triumphs of her ancestors who immigrated to America. But the other richness belongs entirely to Haines in her prowess as a poet, every word fresh, heart keen, "a peddler pocketing stories." Despite the unresolved complexities of the past, she writes this affirmation in "A Tall Man," dedicated to her father: "just be there, Maryśka, to hold your hand; / and all the world / fell in place." -Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, Arkansas Poet Laureate and author of Mary Mallek Haines's collection is a tender, forceful expression of the tension between relinquishing roots and cultivating new ones. In one poem, a young couple bear a sapling from their native Poland: "It will drive good roots in America," Haines writes, "its fragrance ... / will spirit their homeland back to them." The poet assumes the vicissitudes of her ancestors, at times identifying their small yet consequential transitions with intimate experiences of her own, as in: "...a gray cat crouches on a ledge above a barn window. / A swallow, its fierce wings beating, / flies into its path, my heart inside the bird." Thus beats every heart, acutely alive between tenses, as ours might, too, through Haines's memorable poems. Come, read! -Sofia M. Starnes, Virginia Poet Laureate, Emerita; author of