Critical Condition: Women on the Edge of Violence

``I want to find a way to create and show art that depicts the terror and rage and healing on a very direct level,'' Sue Martin says in a statement that reflects the views of most contributors to this difficult-to-categorize volume. Conceived at a California conference that attempted to reassert feminism after the Reagan/Bush years, so much emphasis is placed on art as a therapeutic tool that the creative act seems secondary. Many of the ``artworks'' included here are instead summaries of performances and installations. Poems by Wanda Coleman seem an extension of her prose diatribe about black life in Hollywood. Many writers discuss the police term ``NHI'' (no human involved) often used to write off the murders of prostitutes--a concept actualized by contrasting the failure to locate the murderer of 45 prostitutes in California with the rapid conviction of Aileen Wuornos, a Florida woman, for the murder of five men. While much of this uninspired material is redundant, individual works stand out, including poignant poems by Sapphire and explorative essays by writers who are incest survivors (including National Book Award nominee Dorothy Allison). Scholder co-edited High Risk. Photos not seen by PW. (Dec.)