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In Quiet Light In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women, by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Eerdmans, 71 pp.; $20

Donald Hall has pointed out that if those who lament the lack of support for poetry would themselves buy one book of contemporary poetry a year then poetry would do just fine. If you're still looking for your volume of poetry for this year, I have it for you. It is Marilyn Chandler McEntyre's In Quiet Light: Poems on Vermeer's Women (Eerdmans).

The volume consists of 20 poems, each one a reflection on a Vermeer painting of a woman. The book is handsomely produced, each poem facing a reproduction of the painting it describes. McEntyre says that Vermeer's paintings create "an environment rich with unspoken feeling." She gives words to those feelings, and the words are deft, compassionate, and full of insight.

Whether it is the milkmaid, a "thick– / muscled broad–bottomed girl" whose "jug rests in her hand like a baby's / bottom," or the woman writing the letter, who "Mid–sentence … looks up, caught / on a snag of thought," these women have earned McEntyre's respect, having first earned Vermeer's.

She sees in them complex combinations of yearning and acceptance, innocence and knowledge, strength and gentleness, openness and inwardness—qualities she clearly values in herself and in all women. The letter–writing woman, for instance, is perhaps looking toward someone who has just entered the room, pulling her back from "a place where only mind can go." Yet she is not upset at the interference, recognizing the legitimate call of the obligations of daily life. And so she

consents again to this solid world
of things and duties, hesitates only
this one moment to let go some last
reluctance before she rises.

Vermeer has captured each of these women in the midst of everyday life—pouring, mending, organizing, but also writing, weaving, and making music. They work with their hands and bodies, but also with their minds and spirits and hearts. And sometimes they sneak a short nap. McEntyre's poems explore and affirm each and all of these. She both likes and values these women, she sees herself in them, and, after reading the poems, so will you.

This is the season for gifts. In Quiet Light is the passing on of a gift—from Vermeer to Marilyn McEntyre to the reader. It is a gift the reader will want to pass on to others.

Daniel Taylor is professor of English at Bethel College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

NOTE: For your convenience, the following product, which was mentioned above, is available for purchase:
• In Quiet Light, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

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