The forty-four poems in My Coming of Age-a chapbook with the inside-cover subtitle The Best of an Ongoing Collection of a Life Expressed in Poetry-represent I. B. (Bunny) Iskov's selection of previously published poems, most of which have received contest citations.

The title poem, My Coming of Age-a riff on the fan-fiction mold, told as homage to The Beatles-aptly captures the poet's characteristic wry sense of humour and unshielded personableness in the face of life's swerves, curves, and world concerns. "The Beatles belonged to me / in my coming of age. It was a freer time / even though the Viet Nam war was raging, / even though there was unrest in the Middle East, / even though my parents were constantly fighting, / I had my Beatles record / to keep me safe and happy / when they sang All You Need Is Love ..." Bunny Iskov displays a discerning eye for the everyday, as captured in titles like Chronic Cough, Wringer Washer Warranty

Ode to My Computer; genuine interest in the 'everyman' in poems like Trucker on the 401, Lucy and Desi, and Pamela for Mayor; and strong identification with her Jewish self in What Is a Jew, The Jewish Side of the Poem, and Be on Guard. An Iskov poem speaks with personal conviction and plainspoken pluck: "I am in charge," says the narrator in Bedtime Chimera

"My depression is a page in your book," she declares in As One Cradles Pain; "I remember the last time / I worked the street in high heels," she says tongue-in-cheek in the savvy-shopper piece, cleverly titled Cheap Love. There's a strong thread of sadness underlying the humour and juxtaposed the easiness in many of these pieces. Humour is often a cover and a face for deep and complicated emotions, and it's clear that I.B. Iskov has the latter.

She reveals her own Complicated Suffering and Personal Complexities; remembers and pays tribute to those who have gone to the other side: the beloved people's poet, Ted Plantos, in the surging opening poem What Plantos Meant to Poets Trapped Within Socio-Economic Boundaries; her girlfriends "Marilyn, Rhondi and Lolly" (lost to cancer) in Making Macaroni and Cheese; her mother in Memory and Loss; and the dead at large in When the Dead Do not Depart. In possibly the most touching and illuminating piece in the chapbook, Glass House, the poet writes: "I open my cabinet doors, / rearrange familiar figurines ... "I care for moments, dust them off, display them / on little easels. / I'm composed." This could be the artist's statement. She makes what she will of her life-delicately, deliberately and artfully, piece by piece. Wallace Stevens wrote that "the poet is the priest of the invisible." I submit that Bunny Iskov is the priestess of the visible.

My Coming of Age is a collection that will let you know who I. B. Iskov is and what she stands for. To order your copy, send $12 ($10 + $2 p&h) to I.B. Iskov, #710 - 65 Spring Garden Ave., Toronto, Ont. M2N 6H9