Judith Vollmer is professor of English and director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. Her books include The Door is Open to the Fire and Level Green, the 1990 winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry.

Read Reactor and let Vollmer refresh your geography in startling ways. - Robin Becker, author of The Horse Fair ""Reactor places new emphasis on our complicitous age of nuclear fission at all levels of conscientiousness, in the strategies of highbrow expatriates, and Vollmer's identification with the 'lowest of the low' wayfaring strangers, a high-wire act among her pantheon of peasant witnesses. This archaeology of tonalities, sometimes evinced with compelling lines from her literary ancestors, connects the fierce remembrance of 'family,' hers and ours. We have a new vocabulary of songmaking, ancient and modern."" - Michael S. Harper, poet laureate emeritus, Rhode Island