From Publishers Weekly
This inspiriting collection gathers Sarton's zestful journals, fiction, essays on her craft, and the poetry--taut, formal and passionate--for which she is best known. Sarton, who will be 79 on publication daynifty! , writes of solitude, of ardent love and friendship, houses and gardens, painting and music, and the erotic act of art--as in her poems "The Consummation" and "The Lady and the Unicorn." Her animal poems are poignant, often making application to humans; in "Of Molluscs" lovers, too, are "shelled up in fears." Sarton explores age, sickness (in the novel A Reckoning ), even death as thresholds of deepening experience: the subjects of the poem "Old Lovers at the Ballet" find in themselves that "the soul is a lithe and serene athlete." The narrator of "My Father's Death" compares her bereavement to a ship's being "gently set free, / The landlocked, launched," and announces that she has "slipped out from the embracing shore"' into new life. Poems of grief include a brilliant sestina, "The Concentration Camps," with its unrelenting evocation of dead children's shoes. Westbrook College professor Daziel's gauche introduction dwells on Sarton's detractors, presuming the critical "fate of May Sarton" will be as a celebrant of "traditionally female values (e.g. nurture) as opposed to someone like Joseph Conrad"--a wildly inept equation, for Sarton offers universally humane reflections in a feast of words. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
"There is much I still hope to do," concludes then 75-year-old Sarton in After the Stroke: A Journal. The remarkably long career of poet/novelist Sarton, born in Belgium in 1912, is well represented in this anthology. With introductory essays by Daziel and Constance Hunting, this book offers selections from 13 of her books of poetry (written from 1930 to 1988), eight autobiographical writings, and a brief excerpt from the novel A Reckoning ( LJ 9/1/78). The novella As We Are Now (8/73) about a former teacher's painful confinement in a nursing home, is printed in its entirety. Concerned with healing and solitude, Sarton's prolific work is rooted in a New England tradition of self-analysis and community values. The unadorned prose of her journals, written even after a mastectomy and recovery from a stroke, presents this compassionate survivor, 79 years old at the publication of this work, at her best.-Frank Allen, Schenectady Cty. Community Coll., N.Y.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This inspiriting collection gathers Sarton's zestful journals, fiction, essays on her craft, and the poetry--taut, formal and passionate--for which she is best known. Sarton, who will be 79 on publication daynifty! , writes of solitude, of ardent love and friendship, houses and gardens, painting and music, and the erotic act of art--as in her poems ``The Consummation'' and ``The Lady and the Unicorn.'' Her animal poems are poignant, often making application to humans; in ``Of Molluscs'' lovers, too, are ``shelled up in fears.'' Sarton explores age, sickness (in the novel A Reckoning ), even death as thresholds of deepening experience: the subjects of the poem ``Old Lovers at the Ballet'' find in themselves that ``the soul is a lithe and serene athlete.'' The narrator of ``My Father's Death'' compares her bereavement to a ship's being ``gently set free, / The landlocked, launched,'' and announces that she has ``slipped out from the embracing shore''' into new life. Poems of grief include a brilliant sestina, ``The Concentration Camps,'' with its unrelenting evocation of dead children's shoes. Westbrook College professor Daziel's gauche introduction dwells on Sarton's detractors, presuming the critical ``fate of May Sarton'' will be as a celebrant of ``traditionally female values (e.g. nurture) as opposed to someone like Joseph Conrad''--a wildly inept equation, for Sarton offers universally humane reflections in a feast of words. (May)

Library Journal