"WORD CRAFT AND FRAGILITY... All her work is shot through with a historical consciousness. ... But there is also the present moment, and in For Tracy, as she watches her youngest daughter sleep, Rotstein evocatively captures the stab of terror a child's vulnerability can inspire. ... If there's a single theme that links a lifetime's work, it's just that - the impermanence of every human achievement, the fragility of peace, order and good government."

"SPARSE AND PRECISE, NANCY-GAY ROTSTEIN'S POEMS PAINT LARGE, RICH PICTURES OF LIFE... Her poetry [has] a descriptive prowess that cuts to the quick. Her textures of colour, light and history freeze moments to paper.... Her children could be our children. Her geography is Canada's. She has a strong sense of history, fair play and justice."

"Poet Nancy-Gay Rotstein finds shards of inspiration most every place she goes, selectively vacuuming up images, ideas, emotions and insights that later are fashioned into one of her eloquent, no-nonsense poems.... The scope is vast. ... Her reach is boundless."

"She is an original. It is not just the words she writes, fashioned to fit a space on a page; they
are words from the soul, given brilliant flight in the rare imagination of a daring spirit.... You are drawn into her brilliant constructions, made to feel her layers of nuance. This book becomes a bedside companion, a wise friend..."

"UNITING PLEASURE WITH TRUTH... This Horizon and Beyond is a luminous exploration of the ambit where history, impressions, memory and imagination pass into one another and through one another. How precious to be able to transform the uncertainty and emptiness of life into human potential and hope."

"WRITER CONDENSES COMPLEX IDEAS INTO A FEW SIMPLE WORDS... Rotstein has something to say, and she says it well."

"SURPRISING TWISTS OF PHRASE GIVE THIS POETRY A PUNCH... The book is the culmination of a quarter-century of writing poetry. ... And they are good. There is a gem-like quality to many of them with a precision in language that somehow makes her poems both specific and universal. ... Some of Rotstein's poems have an edge to them, depending on an economy of language and surprising twists of phrase that give them a punch. ... But her best poems, perhaps, are those which deal with her family, and which appear in This Horizon and Beyond for the first time. They are tender and true and will speak to any parent anywhere."

Nancy-Gay Rotstein © 2002