Toni Ortner

Entering Another Country Toni Ortner

"The title poem, "Entering Another Country," is dedicated to a male friend who has died. There are exuberant, rich landscapes of imagined travel, journeys into the visual worlds of Grandma Moses and Rousseau, and the painful realization that what the poet means by travel is change and growth, the raw experience of self-birthing, a process into a place as unknown as the death place of her friend. Here Ortner connects with her female heritage. It is a courageous poem of breaking out, and the unfamiliar terrain into which this takes her almost robs the poet of speech." -Helen Cooper, Motheroot Journal