Descending the stairs twice / poetry by Lilia Lopez Chua.

Contains poems which reiterates the poet's affinity with the younger strain of avant-garde writing, her lines hearing the music of WS Merwin,Denise Levertov,Sylvia Plath,Mark Strand. These musicians expound on reality through weave of fantasy so that the daily experience metamorphoses into the personal symbol,the ultimate valuation of the self. The poems are visually surrealistic ,landscapes and objects plucked out of context from their surroundings and used,re-used,to extract meaning from pain with candor and innocence,here made more forceful by the use of the first person.Unlike the general run of poets,the poet does not editorialize nor tell the reader what to feel and think.Whatever statements she makes are through imagery which is sustained by her ability to suspend disbelief, hence they are not only poems of forbearance but also of wonderment :total inscapes.