In Clarity Between Clouds, Susan Ioannou's disarmingly intimate voice strikes piercingly close to the harsh realities of existence, revealing startling insights and sly bits of aphoristic wisdom. For Ioannou, poetry is a highly personal act which surfaces from everyday existence, permitting her to confront mortality and discover what is truly human. An ordinary act of cookery, for instance, can transport her "far off to hanging gardens, swollen bees / frankincense and ancients stones." But Ioannou's world is by no means narrowly composed. Rather, the poems in this collection expand beyond the everyday to include a dialogue with a Mannerist painting, startling encounters with sound vibrations and holograms, and a sun-struck idyll in a Florentine piazza, to uncover the commonality of emotions even in the most exotic locations.