The poems of Mutual Shores are delivered by one voice, but that voice has the tenor of many. Sterling is a poet straightforward in language and tone yet charmingly deceitful in subject--he draws an idea from the natural world then nurtures it, watches it grow. What results is a furthering of the human experience, a relativity that makes random the Chain of Being and leaves us where 'the rain evokes / no patron saint' and only a small green lizard / offers hope.' Sterling, from him singular vantage point somewhere between the ground and the sky, says to us all This is what you should have seen.About the Author: PHILLIP STERLING was born in Michigan and raised among its lakes. He lives in Big Rapids where he taught at Ferris State University. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, Western Humanities Review, and The Writer's Chronicle. Among his awards are a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, and two Senior Fulbright lectureships (Belgium and Poland).