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.'"

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.