Can a writer’s inner-most world transport and transform the very heart and soul of their readers? This is the age-old question any good author might ask each time they pen a new work. With Moonbeam-Sentinels & Sunbeam-Forgettance, an expansive collection of her first complete published works of poetry, Anni Rannisto has taken up this challenge head-on. Each one of the 36 pieces in this volume steps out onto the poetic ledge and asks reader embark with her on a cathartic, yet equally intense and sometimes gut-wrenching journey of self-exploration and personal revelation. If you are hoping for any rest points along the way - any poetic filler pieces to allow your mind to catch up to the inevitable emotional fallout of this work - I can rest assure you, there are none to be had. To say that Anni loves words and the use of surrealistic wordplay, would be a true understatement. Considering English is not her native language, this makes her use of it even more cogent. She proves this point right off the jump, by demonstrating her unique mastery of imagery and phrasing with her first piece titled, Enter: ‘Dormant sea billows beneath your feet...The wind chimes of your temples speak to you in riddles. For eons you’ve kept your wounds draped. The door of the isness ajar. Never agape, never dead-shut...’ So begins the dream Anni has spun within her kaleidoscope world of metaphor and imagination; all the while, remaining grounded in her own visceral struggle. I have known Anni and her writing long enough to be aware of the high standard she extracts from herself in her creative process and by association, her writing will insist on an equal measure of commitment from her readers. There will be no casual browsing found here as she so vividly portrays in works like, Visitors: ‘I am alone when they come...In clusters, like moths...They come with presents... Pocketful of darkness. Black holes in a jar- seasoned with bastardized stardust...’<