Travel, blood, and transgression are the materials that art shapes in these poems. Carole Simmons Oles's work moves among physical, spiritual, and metaphorical frontiers where East meets West, where relationships are forged and broken, and where a woman can now process and reflect on the experiences that have shaped her life.

Carole Simmons Oles is the author of eight other books of poetry, including The Deed: Poems and Waking Stone: Inventions on the Life of Harriet Hosmer.