Home and Away

These are accessible poems, written in plain, direct language reminding us what it is like to be awake in our world, minute by minute; poems delivered with humor and unaffected humility that suggest a steadier, larger happiness than we might know. Basting's voice is simultaneously traveler, bystander, and intruder, a recalcitrant participant-witness admonishing himself for riding the cusp of other's experiences. HOME and AWAY reads as a team of quietly building poems, beginning with what could be, and finally, inviting a layered view of the peopled and natural worlds.