This selection of poetry is the author's second collection. It diverges from the tone and traditional forms of her first collection with the introduction of several works of light verse, and a lengthy poem about Chopin's first year in Paris (Kremlin of Smoke) written mostly in free verse. Yet, the rhyme and cadenced poems, still largely concerned with the summoning of significant past lives and events--historic or personal--dominate the book, giving it Schnackenberg's distinctive signature.