In Sunday's Baltimore Sun, read reviews of two poetry collections with Maryland connections. Here are excerpts from Diane Scharper's reviews of Voices by former Maryland poet laureate Lucille Clifton (at right) and I Heard God Talking to Me by Elizabeth Spires, who teaches at Goucher College.

Voices (BOA Editions / 59 pages / $22.95) Although National Book Award winner Clifton is a woman of few words, she makes each of them count. Her latest book continues Clifton’s tradition of autobiographical Zenlike poems showcasing an instinct for the evocative image and the just-right ending. Most of the poems personify inanimate things as well as plants, animals and deceased family members. Several poems concern growing up a black woman in a white culture. ... Each section explores the ways the poet relates to voices: from those spoken by inanimate objects to those remembered to those "overheard" in the titles of pictures. Serving as a medium, the poet speaks not only for those things that have no voice, but also for the feelings associated with them. All of this is rendered in Clifton’s trademark sound of black colloquialisms. as if spoken by Basho. With no capitalization or punctuation, these poems get their message across through brevity, white space and line breaks as well as Clifton’s genius for hypnotic rhythm.

I Heard God Talking to Me (Farar, Straus & Giroux / 56 pages / $17.95) Spires’ latest book offers short poetic characterizations of the primitive sculptures and tombstones by William Edmondson, an illiterate artist who heard and saw God speaking to him beginning in his early teens. Accompanied by black-and-white photographs of Edmondson and his carvings, the book has a warm tone and a narrative drive — somewhat reminiscent of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. The fascinating story these poems tell is not about the deceased so much as it is about the individual monuments and their relationship to the carver. ... [Spires] quotes from Edmondson’s descriptions of his work as she skillfully imagines what these carvings might say. Figures like "Adam and Eve," "Three Crows" and even an "Angel with a Pocketbook" speak plaintively as Spires subtly captures the essence of their profound yet simple existence.

Photo courtesy of St. Mary's College of Maryland