Preparing for Spring

A stingingly clear outdoor light illuminates Nell Regan¿s poems. She offers her readers the sweet shock of immediacy: of the 'glimmer of white butterflies,¿ of the worn pieces of glass on the sea¿s edge 'muting clear to milky white,¿ of the smell of fresh copybooks or empty tea-chests, of the 'sweet rasp of sound.¿ . . . Preparing for Spring is an accomplished book which will delight both those readers who have already admired her work . . . and those to whom her voice is new.