<p>The gifted author of Sure Shot (about which The Harvard Review wrote, &quot;Erica Funkhouser has written an important book and is on her way to becoming an important poet&quot;) has now composed her third volume, including lyrics that conjure up a sisterly view of childhood, a narrative poem that brings to life a city under siege in civil war, and a group of poignant shorter poems dramatizing love, pain, and history. Much anthologized, Erica Funkhouser's dramatic poems are models of their kind: &quot;Funkhouser breathes new life into the legends of Sacagawea, Louisa May Alcott, and Annie Oakley . . . but her most moving poems are those in her own voice&quot; (Library Journal). To get the shape right one must be capricious as a twig - crave sunlight and audience and leave things open to the rain - respecting, at the same time, the solemnity of the whole tree. Certain irrevocable decisions must be lived with. - From &quot;Pruning&quot;</p>