Collected here are poems from Peter Oresick's previous books, beginning with The Story of Glass (1977), and to them are added 36 new poems called Under the Carpathians. His work—known for working class and Catholic themes—probes labor and social history, post-World War II America, Eastern European identity, Eastern Rite Catholicism, and Russian icons and fine art and especially Pittsburgh-born pop art icon Andy Warhol.

Traversing time, cities, and voices, The Apollonia Poems finds its central aesthetic in place: physical and locational, perceptual and imagined. Judith Vollmer's poet-wanderer explores the layered terrains of urban environments from Pittsburgh to the Mediterranean to the Carpathians. Employing narratives and lyrics, songs and reports, and a short verse-play in three voices, Vollmer's meditations are by turns elegiac and celebratory, colloquial and lyrical.

"Reactor "gives voice to beloved and ruined American landscapes through extended meditations of an urban mystical wanderer.

Judith Vollmer's The Water Books does a stunning job of blending natural images within an urbane setting. Whether it be Pittsburgh, a bus, a phone conversation Vollmer's attention to detail is unparalleled.