Is This Forever, or What?: Poems & Paintings from Texas

A collection as diverse and voluminous as the state that inspired it, Is This Forever, or What? Poems and Paintings from Texas, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye, brims with intense verse and artwork from 140 Texas writers and artists. The compilation's scope is not limited to merely reflecting on Texan life but instead mirrors that which binds all people together as human beings. Nye puts together poems that cover the gamut, from tactile details about the Lone Star State, as in Beverly Caldwell's ""And Every Town Its Dairy Queen (""In Texas, every podunk town/ has a Dairy Queen,/ where old men in Stetsons/ or John Deere caps/ gather between naps"") to Jacinto Jes s Cardona's ""Avocado Avenue,"" which takes readers from the specific to the universal. (Mar.)