West of Childhood includes a series of sketches of the people and places which spanned a western childhood. The first part of the book reflects the observations, fears and memories from a young person’s perspective, but, when synthesized, these diverse elements lead to the thoughtful, resilient, more mature point of view expressed by the final poems in the book. Each poem is meant to provide a colorful, detailed, emotionally infused and independent portrait which ultimately melds with the other pieces in the work to reach a place farther ’; west ’; where there is a greater sense of an autonomous self and a realization that while the past cannot be changed, the speaker in the collection has reached a resolution and understanding of these previous conflicts.