In this collection, poet Sarah Law presents lucid, lyrical reflections on the much-loved saint, Therese of Lisieux (1873-97), whose life and writing has been an inspiration to so many people. For Sarah Law, there is something about Therese that catches at the heart, and her poems flow from that sense of friendship and tenderness with her subject. Many of the poems meditate on events, large and small, in Therese's brief but spiritually significant life. The first section explores her childhood, and the second, her nine precious years as a Carmelite nun; years of both sweetness and suffering. Several poems are inspired by well-known photographs of Therese, some of which are included in this volume. A final section considers Therese's legacy, as her 'little way' of confidence and love became known throughout the world. Each poem may be read as an individual reflection, and as part of the larger biographical sequence.

"Ascension Notes" makes a place for space and light. Language ascends and reflects back on itself in short lyrical poems and longer fragmented sequences. A woman, at a table, writing; Woolf's phrase echoes through these lines. Meditations on creativity and spirituality are as open-ended as the forms they take: the conclusion reached is one of the necessity of 'making the sign of the poet' in an always shifting and strangely illuminated human world.

Prepare for some adventures in "Perihelion." These poems evoke shifting states of mind and heart, from childhood terrors to the wisdom of the mystic, with all the twists of love, doubt and insight which come in between. There are monsters in this collection (but are they generated by science-fiction or the psyche?); there is grace, there is art, and there is longing. In her writing, Sarah Law traces the dynamics of relationship and of solitude, pushing lyric poetry to a playful complexity, but allowing the poignancy of our human condition to flow through each poem. Sarah Law studied literature at Cambridge and London universities, and currently teaches literature and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. She has two poetry collections published by Stride (Bliss Tangle, 1999, The Lady Chapel, 2003). This is her third collection.