Down by the Riverside Ways

These poems revel in all the sensual pleasures life has to offer. They also lay bare the injustices afflicting too many of the poets fellow townspeople, who respond to the various wars waged against them with the fortitude of survivors and with a love for one another not shown by their persecutors. Susan Allison has done for Middletown, Connecticut, what Williams did for Paterson, New Jersey: she has seen past its pedestrian surface to its mythical underpinnings. She has written a book whose passion, honesty, and visceral style make it an important contribution to the world of poetry.