Poems and Drawings: "REAP," by Mara Adamitz Scrupe, proceeds in fragments and asides and elliptical flights, working through an associative maze. And we, as readers, are drawn into the intense thickets of this playful and lingual dance, wading into language's dense undergrowth. Fierce, staccato lines and startling juxtapositions create a kaleidoscope of the lush interior world: "we dreamt our self-made asylum." This is a richly generous book about the devastated flora of the personal, the poet taking us on an insightful, botanical tour of memory and the human psyche. Doug Ramspeck, author of "Blur."

In "REAP," Mara Adamitz Scrupe's craftmanship is consummate, her artistic accomplishment complete. She has a perfect ear for the musical potential of the English language. There is not a discordant syllable or a word out of place to be found here. In these poems she generously shares a knowledge of flowers as detailed as any botanist's combined with the sensibilities of a philosopher and a true seer of beauty. At every turn life, memory, understanding are affirmatively filtered through petals of varying colour and texture so rich, multiple sittings are required to reap all the fruits this book has to offer. Patrick Cotter, author of "Making Music" and "Sonic White Poise," is Artistic Director, Munster Literature Centre, Cork, Ireland.

"REAP" is meditative, clear sighted and wise. Great poetry should make you feel, and this poignant infusion of animal, plant and human consciousness is simply sublime. From the very first poems we are plunged headfirst into nature and all its pure, ambivalent sexual clarity. There is birth, there is death but above all life is thriving in all its myriad forms as art melds into the rhythm of the seasons. Whether sister, mother, father, wilderness or farm the deep and permanent connection to our environment in all her violent glory is laid bare in these exquisite poems. Dave Lewis, Author of "Africa Poems and Mixed Messages." Founder of Welsh Poetry Competition.

I would suggest that no modern poet has written as experimentally, as sensually, and as scientifically on nature as Mara Adamitz Scrupe does in this wonderful collection. The language throughout "REAP" is full of rhythm and alliteration but it also connects the poet's environment with a rich personal history in ways that are so subtle as almost to be missed. Scrupe writes confidently in a voice that draws the reader into a world I didn't want to leave. Luigi Marchini, author of "The Anatomist."