Braiding high kicks in, stylishly sassy with "My life in cars." Sufficient pointers to shape any collection. But this poet has continents to cross, great loves and losses to share, and histories both personal and universal; some sun-filled, some dark indeed. That's no small act. Her wide spectrum holds pain and joy understood with spirited generosity, acute observation and undiminished wit, "Bloom where you are planted," her mother insisted. And, oh, she has!Beth McDonagh, MakarThis is a poet who dallies with Morpheus, communes with St. Brigid, spies angels in the London fog, and conjures up her Louisiana childhood in a few succulent phrases. She also captures the angst of our plague years and celebrates the slim scrim of connection and hope we all want to feel. I am refreshed by her fearlessness, transported by her word music, and I laughed out loud. What more could we want from poetry?Ivy SchweitzerThese poems bring us characters real, mythical and imagined. We are lulled by the warmth of Mississippi summers and chilled by stories of the past lives of witches. And braided through it all a sense of magic. Gill LambertFrom a Louisiana childhood where ladies never work outside the home Susan Castillo Street shows a woman flown away, come into her powers. Sometimes conversational, sometimes witch-lyrical, these poems carry a radiant spirit of rebellion.Helen IvoryBraiding evokes a rich tapestry of experience. Whether she's returning to her native Louisiana via family tales and portraits of unforgettable characters or casting her eye over lives lived elsewhere and the treatment of women throughout history, Castillo Street does so with a deft sense of line. Her voice is unmistakably from the Deep South which gives her work a lyricism all of its own. Mark Connors
