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 piñata in 'The Party, ' a 'sweet, dark center.