"With an unimpressive white jacket binding its contents and a hand-written press release announcing its arrival, A Baker's Dozen is one of those books even a confirmed poetry lover could overlook.

Don't.

Inside the simple cover, which features the writers' randomly scribbled signatures, is the work of 13 talented women poets who live and work in Alabama.

The women who contributed to the anthology are thoroughly Southern. They write about the bluffs above the Sipsey River . . . and the moon reflecting in Mobile Bay. But the writers succeed in transcending regionalism to examine the emotions intertwined with every woman's change and loss without lapsing into sentimentality . . . .

Rarely pretentious, sometimes sensuous and always insightful, the accessible verses are complemented by succinct capsule biographies and individual essays about the role poetry plays in each writers's life.

Most of the writers are professional women, homemakers and mothers. Most have been published numerous times with the exception of a Birmingham teenager, whose simple yet promising work is included to provide insight into the thought of a 21st century poet.

Included in the anthology are six poems by Huntsvillian Bonnie Roberts. Her "Emulating Mother in the Garden, but After the Fall" follows . . . ."