My Painted Warriors Author:Peggy Penn, Peggy Penn Penn probes the character of enduring love and the frailty of human life. These poems are a celebration of ritual and the passage of time. — "Penn's subject is age: winter and funerals, yes, but also brassieres, orgasms after sixty, flourishing gardens, and four boys, her painted warriors. The images of these poems, both tender and bright, are as... more » surprising as the sudden ruby of blood from a cut. Their sensibility is as understanding of humanity as any reader could hope for. Penn encases the double helix of love and loss in the ordinary, whether that is a cantaloupe or the hair on a wrist. Worlds into worlds open up in My Painted Warriors, transforming this book of poems into a collection of miracles. It is the kind of poetry I can turn to when I wake in the night, the voice of both a fellow companion and a sagacious guide." - Molly Peacock« less