In the first part of the book, 'Our World', the poems celebrate places - countries like Tajikistan, where eyes 'sparkle with promise'; cities like Port-Louis, where 'time is ajar' and 'amazing Albany'; the 'cathedral floor' of Lake Roitoti in New Zealand; the riot of flowers in a Caribbean garden. The warmth of the writers in their desire to open out and share their homelands is everywhere in the book: 'Would you like to know about my country?' is the inviting start to a poem set in Turkey but it is a question implicitly repeated throughout, a question which draws the reader into a conversation with a host of warm and engaging personalities. Landscapes and cityscapes are important for revealing relationships and history as in the poem 'Breaker Bay' where an apple-munching child contemplates the view which, we later learn, will not change even when 'other things have.' It is these small details of place which open out into revelatory moments of humanity. We learn of homesickness for Durban triggered by guavas in St Johns Wood High Street. We witness an unexpected moment of grace in a pod on the London Eye and personal triumph on a Cairngorm Crag. We feel the heat of Andalucian passion. In the second part of the anthology, the members of Soroptimist International share their concerns and passions: for the fragility of the planet, for their relationships with others, for their work and families and for their organisation, Soroptimist International, which brings them together. It provides a joyful look at some serious topics, a blend of wisdom and playfulness which never fails to charm and engage. In the end, the power of the anthology is not surprising: the biographies of its women contributors are so rich in experience they read like poems, too. Jo Shapcott President of the Poetry Society, London
