Poetry as the solidifying of memory, poetry as a survivor's sanguine amusement, takes a lifetime. Louise Nicholas relates autobiography through strongly considered moments in time in The List of Last Remaining (Five Islands Press, $25.95 pb, 85 pp, 9780734051998). Her childhood is tracked by the small fears, confusions, and elations that only later feel like turning points:

                 in the same year but not the day
that President Kennedy was shot in Texas,
I sit on the sidelines at my first high school social
wondering what to make of a new betrayal:
the flowered bodice of my favourite party frock
straining to contain an embarrassment of breasts
where once there was little more than the rise
and fall of my breath.
                                                           ('Aged Thirteen')