Seldom does beauty collide naturally with gravity, but that is what happens in Diane Kirsten Martin’s Conjugated Visits repeatedly. Again and again, one finely tuned poem after another, this collection brings the natural world into our everyday lives, and we can’t escape or deny our debt. The observed is clearly the crystal engine here, at the heart of Conjugated Visits; an urgent music moves each poem down the page with a calibrated knowingness that releases us to truth and wonderment. - Yusef Komunyakaa Diane K. Martin’s strong voice and measured wit infuse these often bluesy poems with energy and precision … [S]he possesses the ability to carry her readers through the infant skin of light, seeing deeply into the core heat of the physical world. - Dorianne Laux Taut and intelligent, yet spiked with wry humor, Diane Martin grabs your hand, leads you, and never lets go. What a pleasure! - Francine Ringold, Editor-in-Chief, Nimrod International Journal These poems visit desire from childhood and first love to the long-term or more transitory and expand to include the yearning toward some kind of god. Diane K. Martin’s art is that of an ever-widening embrace of the conjugated visits we call our lives. - Fred Marchant, author of The Looking House