Spanning the centuries from Sappho's Greece to modern South Africa, the voices of these women poets express themes of love, motherhood, injustice, loss, and racial and sexual oppression. The sequence of the poems moves from youth to old age, and they bear witness to the triumphs as well as the pain and frustration of women in many times and in many places. Among the poets whose work is included are Anna Akhmatova, Maya Angelou, Judith Kazantzis, Gabriela Mistral, Marge Piercy, Irina Ratushinskaya, and Alice Walker.