"Yellow Studio", Stephen Romer's fourth book of poems, is furnished with the poems of that middle of the life where amorous bewilderment, rueful satire and the bitter-sweet memory conduct their urgent dialogue. Exploring the mystifying link between sacred and erotic love, Romer identifies the source of art itself, a place of creation and refuge, the yellow studio of the title poem. It is the lighted room of childhood, a vulnerable private place the adult tries to recreate. Formal acts of remembrance are attempts to identify what lies ahead as much as to preserve the shadows. Here Romer, with innocence and urbanity, takes stock of past and future.
