In this collection of poignant poems, Julianne Seeman returns to her childhood and youth to re-member, to put back the pieces of a well-lived life. She reminds us that memory "winds intricate" as train track and that to return is to "make maps" in order to "find what is left." This is a poet brave enough to learn the hard lessons of life: "The years do that, the way they scar" and "dull the finish"-and generous enough to offer hope: "Even if barn doors open" and "much of life is gone, there's light / enough to find what's left inside."
Make Up for Lost Time brims with nostalgia and elegy: This is a poet who has loved deeply. And by the end of the collection, the reader knows that this poet, who claims, "I am the keeper of the goods / and stories... / / looking toward the end of my life," is also "the woman who doesn't give up or give in," who "lives her own life to the fullest, to the end." And we can all take heart that, even though "... What is left / survives books," Julianne Seeman has gifted us with a collection that carries the love and loss which survives in her heart.
