VDM Walker, A: Agitated Muse

As Allison S. Walker comments in her introduction to Agitated Muse, she has been "shaped by a woman's sensibilities in the face of a poetic tradition that has, in the past, been dominated by the masculine voice that ascribes the woman to the role of art object, or Muse," yet in this tantalizing collection of poems she challenges her own conflicted Southern roots and dares to keep her "sanity balanced precariously on the point of a stiletto heel." Hidden within the melodic simplicity of her post-confessional voice, Agitated Muse provides insight into Classical, historical, and deeply feminine issues through poems of narrative discovery, lyrical observation, and provocative sensuality. These are poems woven with compassion and heartbreaking beauty, carrying the weight of a whole country's irreconcilable history on the backs of horses, preachers, mothers and daughters, in a landscape where storytelling is necessary for survival.