Ribbon Without End

The evocative title of this collection gradually takes on beautifully layered meanings. A "ribbon" of time runs from the arrival of William in the New World in 1635 to the Civil War and on to the present day, when the author herself is a grandmother teaching her granddaughter the rituals she learned as a child. The poems abound in striking detail-treasured artifacts and daily chores and even popular dances. Lives enacted in the dramatic monologues are hard and even tragic, yet laced with wonder and joy. Ultimately, Dorothy Baird's memorable ribbon of human experience "spools out" from ancestral legacy to an unknown future.

-David Radavich, author of America Bound and The Countries We Live In

In Ribbon Without End, Dorothy Baird invites her readers inside the pages of a family album, combining legend and legacy with honesty and tenderness. Her confident skills, rich with image and emotional insight, unwind a ribbon of connection through five generations. Baird deftly underpins her concept of familial roots with the natural roots of trees and plants that intertwine in the soil to provide endurance and stability. Like her charming poem, "Handing Down," in which a mother can "fasten my son to the past with buttons," Baird's satisfying collection fastens us to the complexities of human connection.

-Jo Ann Steger Hoffman, author of Angels Wear Black

Ribbon Without End is a tour de force of the universal themes of longing, hope, and love expressed in the particular stories of Dorothy Baird's family photographs. These finely crafted poems illuminate a wide swath of American history, stretching from the first European settlers through the Civil War and down to the modern era. The beauty and potency of these poems will inspire reflection upon one's own history and identity. I will carry Baird's words with me wherever I go.

-Andrew Taylor-Troutman, author of Gently Between the Words: Essays and Poems