PositiveThe Arithmetic of Compassion... Reckonings, focuses on the emotional poignancy of risk and contamination ... One of Walsh’s poems, \'Expert Testimony\' ... condenses and dramatizes the testimony of soil scientist Dr. Kirk Brown as a way of poignantly representing the expert witness’s actual language ... In fewer than 100 words, this poem crystallizes Dr. Brown’s actual testimony, which is far more defuse and equivocal. The witness’s statement about the increased risk of cancer is translated from numerical probabilities into biological activities...as a way of vivifying the pathways of contamination and enhancing readers’ empathy for victims of dangerous contamination ... Other poems...evoke wistful nostalgia, a yearning to know the pre-industrial \'wild perfection\' of Appalachia that now seems unattainable.
