Counting Colors

Cheryl Boyer's Counting Colors speaks of "fire-born gold" on its dedication page-an apt description of this finely wrought love story, a testament to the particular grief of infertility as well as our innately human potential to wrest a blessing from even the most challenging circumstances. Boyer leads us, cleanly and clear-eyed, through the sorrow of never-to-be-fulfilled hopes and dreams to a full and touching claiming of the sweet unknown of adoptive parenthood, into which, she says in "My Son's Story," "I let myself fall / hard / fast / in love precisely / as I imagined / and nothing / like it at all."

Counting Colors is a perfect gift for those struggling with infertility, and those who love them and seek to understand their pain. But it is also a gift to all who have endured invisible scars that "cut deep / honing / refining / purifying."

Maureen Ryan Griffin, author of Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong and writing coach and instructor at wordplaynow.com

In her debut poetry collection, Cheryl Boyer takes readers through a deeply personal experience, walking them through a land of loss as effortlessly as if she were born and raised there. And there are side trips-imagining the world of a birth mother, navigating a marriage in changing seasons, offering new poetic definitions for words like wound, dreams, incubation, birthday, colors. When Boyer weaves readers in and out of yet another land-one of daring to hope-this remarkable collection sings even stronger. I loved reading these poems. I have had almost none of the poet's life experiences, and yet it feels as if I have had them all. That's how powerful this poet is.

Lonnie Hull DuPont, poet and author of The Haiku Box

Boyer's opening poem "Rehearsal" firmly sets the theme and pace of this deeply felt collection centering on what it means to be a woman unable to bear children. Through straightforward, heart-jerking honesty, we glimpse the poet's angst and anguish, from the mother-in-law's inquiring, "Are you pregnant?"-whose "voice untethers me"-to all the things "these hands have" done, including "held the weight of empty years." Boyer's sincere, candid approach illustrates how little our culture has changed, balancing the poet's internal struggle against external preconceptions. As the book progresses, we discover that adoption brings joyous rewards, immeasurable love, yet the treason of her own body remains a grief with which the poet must come to terms. And she does, learning to surrender without losing as she affectingly redefines family for us all.

Anne Kaylor, author of Unwilling to Laugh Alone, and Executive Editor / Publisher, moonShine review