Since the publication of Thylias Moss's first book of poetry in 1983, her reputation has soared. As a poet who emerged a generation after the poets of the turbulent 1960s, Moss produces poetry that is nevertheless indicative of this political period in that her work is sometimes caustic, social, and moral, but she also breaks away from the antiestablishment protests and develops a fresh richness in her poetry with sensitivity, delicacy, and humanism. What emerges as a result of her ability to be an observer are poetic expressions that are vivid, accurate, and distinctive. She also achieves through her poetry a tonal quality that progresses from anger to joy, a quality that finally accomplishes in her fourth book of poetry what she terms "control." She weaves themes of freedom and mother-daughter relationships into her work. Although Moss's poetry is not strictly autobiographical, it does reveal a panorama of what...