Widow's Quilt: Poems

Maturity and experience earmark this first collection by a woman who didn't begin writing poetry until after age 40. The young bride of a reporter killed in Vietnam, her movement from not-so-innocent daughter of a gambling father to ecstatic bride and sudden widow is presented in lyrical, memorable imagery. This is not a poet used to comfort. Hiding under a living-room chair, she eavesdrops on her parents' conversation: ""My father says he only/ borrowed the money/ from the cash drawer/ just for an hour during lunch."" Later, she lies down beside her husband's grave, using their double stone for a headboard. As striking as these poems are, they're carried by content, not craft. When dealing with the more mundane aspects of a resuscitated life, Castan's poems become prosaic and her imagery drawn from sentiment rather than transcended pain. ""We embrace with death/ shimmering in our hair,"" she writes in a poem to her second husband. Readers will hope that Castan's next collection demonstrates the growth of her unique poetic strengths. (June)