Entering Another Country

“The title poem, “Entering Another Country,” is dedicated to a male friend who has died. There are exuberant, rich landscapes of imagined travel, journeys into the visual worlds of Grandma Moses and Rousseau, and the painful realization that what the poet means by travel is change and growth, the raw experience of self-birthing, a process into a place as unknown as the death place of her friend. Here Ortner connects with her female heritage. It is a courageous poem of breaking out, and the unfam