Former North Carolina Poet Laureate Cathy Smith Bowers is celebrated with this impressive volume of her collected poems. Four complete collections: The Love That Ended Yesterday in Texas; Traveling in Time of Danger; A Book of Minutes; The Candle I Hold Up to See You, with an introduction by another former North Carolina Poet Laureate, Fred Chappell, who says, "Hardship, cruelty, heartbreak, bleak sorrow-these sad themes are plentiful in the pages of Cathy Smith Bowers. But in its smoldering heart, her poetry holds, like the pinata in 'The Party, ' a 'sweet, dark center.'"

An intriguing inscription on a memorial stone in Bolton churchyard led Cathy Smith to investigate the life of farmer's son Henry Dent, who died in Van Diemen's Land in January 1854, aged 27. How and why had he travelled so far from home? Using many of Henry's own words from his poems and letters, Cathy has reconstructed Henry's brief but adventurous life. Not content with the farming life, he visited London in 1851 to see the Great Exhibition, then set sail from Liverpool for Melbourne Australia, a journey described in fascinating detail. Other letters describe his experiences at the goldfields of Mount Alexander where he had some success in striking gold. From there he travelled to Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, where he was keen to find out if the transported convicts were as venal as portrayed. He began to export produce to Melbourne to service the goldfields and set up a timber cutting business on the Huon River. It was left to his companion Henry Richardson to describe the devastating forest fire in which he lost his life.

Like Shining From Shook Foil: Selected Poems by Cathy Smith Bowers, award-winning Poet Laureate of North Carolina, brings together selections from four collections of poetry and 19 previously uncollected poems. The title of Ms. Smith Bowers' new collection epitomizes her way of writing from an abiding image and her ability to shine a light upon moments of intensity, joyous or painful. This light is the flaming out of an energy, a source of power greater than herself. Through 30 years of publishing poetry, Smith Bowers has tapped into that energy source, and Like Shining From Shook Foil is charged with the grandeur of her abiding images.