In Sandra Kacher's debut collection of poems, First Confession, she explores the twists and knots in her life and asks "There must be answers somewhere....?" Out of her "dark-heart cave" steeped in Catholicism, she turns to myths, goddesses and aliens for validation and salvation. Many poems flow with rich imagery that cut to the quick of self-doubt and aging, then rebound as she finds consolation in tender childhood and motherhood memories, coffee shops, the chemistry of nature, her own wisdom and faith that in her version of heaven, "the grapefruit juice will be delicious."-June Blumenson, poet, author of The Quickening Light From "the rodent gnaw of guilt," learned early in the confessional, to a tender recognition of "thesurprising sweetness of myself," Sandra Kacher's collection of poetry First Confession, leads her reader on a journey of self-healing. Despair and hope jig together on these pages: she fears she's missed her life yet acknowledges that "in the open spaces between start and finish, possibilities billow." Kacher finds solace in the "long green patience of trees" and is a master of the art of the closing line. If you are open to "gorgeous trouble" expressed in compelling words, this might be just the book for you.-Elizabeth Weir, poet, author of When Our World as Whole In First Confession, Sandra Kacher demonstrates a knack for wrestling down the ultimate questions of our existence by exploring the quotidian with fresh, concrete images: "whiskey-colored [leaf] scraps danc[ing] shadows on January's white," "a parade of powderpost beetles ... bolt[ing] from burrows chewed through hardwood," and in a neighborhood coffee shop: " a toddler's downward dog tumble, a boy learning to talk football with his dad," When Kacher speaks directly about the quest for permanence in this entropic universe, she stands alongside the reader as a seeker of the ineffable rather than as a purveyor of "Truth". She hopes for "answers / somewhere, though not in the rising panic / that tells me nothing lies ahead but dissolution" as she writes in "Losses." Kacher's poems are the answer by standing squarely in two worlds at once: the world of "separation" and the world of "consolation."-Terry Lucas, Poet Laureate Emeritus, Marin County, California
