Life-affirming but without illusions, How to Live on Bread and Music, showcases poet Jennifer K. Sweeney’s mature consciousness and circumspect intelligence.  This collection, made up of poems that stand firmly on their own, takes us on a physical and spiritual trip, symbolized in recurring images of the train.  Exploring broad themes such as identity formation, nostalgia, and impermanence, the poet passes through risk to find refuge in the sensory world.  What is most remarkable is Sweeney’s ability to confide without burdening, her gift for arranging enough silence between words for us to locate the pulse of meaning.