In her latest book of poems, poet and mystery novelist Betsy Struthers is standing midstream, mid-career, mid-life, looking at both shores. These are poems of positioning: where to stand in relation, how to carry what drives us. The dominant metaphors are of animals and water, wolves and whales; the choreographing themes are desire and faith. Desire is “gloved in dread,” yet kisses “grant benediction.”

Driven is divided into four sections: Father, Son, Body, Soul. The first three sections find a woman keeping a poetic record of her father dying and her son outgrowing her care. Her own mother is drifting off. Outside, husbands and lovers are snuggling, ranging, or lost. The last section is a historical sequence based upon the journals of one of Struthers’ ancestors, Henry Alline, an 18th-century New Light Prophet to the Maritimes, who wrestles with passion and disgust until a Brightness calls him to the pulpit. It is intriguing to hear the poet and her ancestor both struggling with the same issues of hunger and calling.

Struthers is trying to unite perfect sense with the primitive yowl, and like her ancestor, she is driven to give voice to light, but must find it first. Between short, choppy lines and more self-assured long sentences, the poems reveal a woman in the midst of finding her stride, both in life and as a poet. The poems offer the occasional jolt, rising from rare empty moments alone in hotel rooms or at the beach. Strong, compassionate women who are mothers, lovers, daughters, and wonderers will especially find kinship in these poems.