A saving bannister (Paperback)

Across the abyss a bannister goes, a raining on a ledge over sullen darkness, leading its intermediaries to stairs up and down, rooms that begin and do not end, halls of light (but rarely glory), alcoves peopled by rain spiders and slow breathing. So begins Wendy Woodward's third volume of poetry, a journey into vulnerability and grace, across terrains inhabited by dogs, minotaurs and leviathans, by puppets and a failed Icarus. Stories are teased from the ears of donkeys and the pit-pits of an oyster catcher, from a cupboard in the Amatholas to a monastery in Sikkim--all held behind the saving bannister of her poetry.