IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER I WOULD PICK MORE DAISIES

Often evocative anthology of women's poems, prose, and photographs about choices that helped contour the authors' lives: a follow-up to the popular When I Am an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple, a collection of poems and stories on women's experience of aging and old age. Here, editor Martz (publisher of Papier Mache-Press) has chosen more than 60 pieces by authors who tell tales of decisions made and not made that, in retrospect, were defining moments. The selections cut across a spectrum of age, race, and ways of life, from young girls reflecting on relationships to old women reflecting upon their next meal. The terse title essay is by 85- year-old Nadine Stair, who says that ``If I had my life to live over...I'd dare to make more mistakes....I would be sillier....I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers....I would pick more daisies.'' Other entries speak of the choice to bear children- -or not to bear them; of pregnancies terminated or not terminated; of lovers taken or not taken; and, in Leslie Nyman's memorable ``Strawberries,''of lawns mowed or not mowed. A powerful poem, ``Vietnam,'' by Jennifer Lagier, lets the reader taste that war's residual poison. Speaking of her husband, a Vietnam vet, Lagier says, ``For a decade, we took Da Nang...to bed.'' The same cross- section of women—young, old, Asian, Caucasian—looks out from the dozen or so black and white photos that stand on their own throughout the book. Lacking the poignant immediacy of its predecessor—the difficult choices, for the most part, are viewed from a less vulnerable distance—but, still, an honorable and thought-provoking companion volume. (First printing of 70,000)