From a childhood in England to significant world events such as the Chernobyl explosion, Signal Fires traverses a physical and emotional terrain marked by strong moments of connection. Though the poems fly in many different directions, a clear thread runs throughout-the intricate balance between the flawed, fraught character of our world and the boundless restorative power of nature. These consistently surprising poems contain nests of articulate silences--between parents and grown children, between lovers, and between the man-made and natural worlds. An untouched piano's quiet "begins to accumulate/into a lucent blue lake--the blue of submarine canyons and nocturnes--/over which swallows dip and veer, wide-gaped, / scooping insects out of the air." How lucky we are to have Sy Baldwin's precise eye and subtle soundings to reawaken us to the world! -Julie Bruck, author of Monkey Ranch Sy Margaret Baldwin's poems are inhabited by a singular wind, one that refreshes us as it reveals the human predicament. With unfailing symmetry and grace, Signal Fires travels the distance between scope and intimacy, balancing those two destinations with keen observation and an abiding thirst for the source of what sustains us. Each poem is a station of the heart, pulling us away from despair toward compassion. -Pam Bernard, author of Blood Garden: An Elegy for Raymond