Familiar Journey, Poems (Southwest Heritage)

In this, her second volume of poetry, Peggy Pond Church pursues the course indicated in Foretaste first published in 1933 and now in a new edition from Sunstone Press. In Familiar Journey there is the same dark feminine principle further amplified in this collection of personal lyrics. Both the title poem and the rest of the contents show the author's progress along the road all must travel. Most of the images used in these poems reflect nature; most keen and sharp and freshly worded, signifying an observance of the small things that are individual, accurate and vivid. In the group of poems written about her children, Mrs. Church's phrasing is felicitous, and in these her personal lyric voice becomes universal. Rarely, too, will be found the sheer poetry which is in ''Christ's Birthday.'' The utter simplicity of phrase, coupled with the strength and delicacy of imagery, in this one poem make it the most remarkable of the contents of the volume. Here is pure rightness of word; pure beauty of image.