Convictions of the Heart is a new collection from US poet, John L. Holgerson. The collection is divided in two parts. The first part, Hydra, is Holgerson's delicate paean to an island he fell in love with when he first visited in 1970 and to which he still returns. The second part, Other Places, Other People, moves the setting from the Aegean Sea to explore the loves and lives of the poet's experience away from Hydra. What unifies the whole collection is Holgerson's masterful exploration of a fascination with memory, time, and experience and the shifting perspective that comes with arrival, leaving, recalling, returning.

This is an important collection from a masterful poet, at once challenging and reassuring, insightful and comforting.