Sarton (1912-1995) was a National Book Award winning novelist as well as a poet and perhaps most importantly, a memoirist.  Born in Belgium and moving to England to avoid WWI, she grew up in Cambridge, MA.  Ultimately settling in York, ME, she was an important lesbian writer and feminist, though ultimately unhappy and lonely.  Her poems in this volume are uneven, being written just a year before she died and after a long period of illness.  There are some beautiful renderings of nature, as in December Moon:  “Before going to bed/after a fall of snow/I look out on the field/shining there in the moonlight/so calm, untouched, and white/snow silence fills my head/after I leave the window.”   A number of poems depicting aging, loss of ability, and pain are expressively well done.