What words could encompass and illuminate the poems in Lew Forester's The Rooms Between? Courageous. Luminous. Intimate. As the title poem unfolds, the reader begins to see and sense what's interwoven in this book-of-the-world-and-us-how we live in and between rooms, where "bodies speak the language of flesh / yet stumble and lean / toward the ineffable." We live among vibrant colors, gleaming light and deep darkness, the inescapable hours of life, and binding threads of body and soul. From "Close of Day" "Our bodies like candles have burned / in so many rooms" and "Let dawn assure us the light we are / is enough." This striking collection is an intricate and resonant ecology of our fleeting time here.-Veronica Patterson, Colorado Book Award winner for Swan, What Shores?Lew Forester's title poem for The Rooms Between serves as both structural and thematic template for this exceptional volume. Forester displays not only his sensitivity to the subtle and substantial implications of everyday life, but also his great skill at arranging language in new and powerful ways to communicate his vision and understanding. In "Ode to Sleep" he writes: "words swim like fish I've yet / to net in any waking sentence." There are poems and passages you won't forget. He has achieved true artistic success with this collection, a must read.-John P. (Jack) Kristofco, author of Shadows on the FogLew Forester's new collection of poems, The Rooms Between, offers tranquility and perception of beauty in ordinary occurrences. His careful word crafting guides the reader to the reality of our reliance on the natural world. There is the appreciation of a safety net that we are dangerously close to destroying. In "Mud Season," "the earth mothers us even as we sink / into her mud. / These are the holes our bodies leave. / This is how we move forward, slogging / through loss, tracking it into our lives." Here are poems that haunt even as they challenge us to move forward with courage and hope.-Barbara Ellen Sorensen, author of Compositions of the Dead Playing Flutes
