Soundings are the poems of a lifetime, written by a woman whose life has been dedicated to music, to family and to travel. For over 30 years, Joanne Regenhardt enjoyed a full career as a professional singer of the classical repertoire. About the relationship of her passion for music to poetry, she says: "The musician becomes engrossed in meters and rhythms, harmonies, timing, pauses and silences. Along with learning the musical score, he or she discovers the intent of the composer, the poetry of the composition. In my case, I felt similar meters, rhythms and harmonies in the life around me and felt a need to express them in poetry.
Soundings is divided into six sections: Writing Poems, Soundings, Love Poems, Reading Poems, Early Poems and Recent Poems. Writing Poems is by way of introduction, and Soundings and Love Poems form the main body of the work. Reading Poems was written in homage to inspirational poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickinson, in close approximation of their beloved voices. Early Poems hark back to the poet's beginnings, while Recent Poems have been written in the past year or so.
In Soundings are love poems (not necessarily romantic), poems about childhood, and poems about children. There are poems about the feelings of a young woman in her 20s and those feelings revisited by the same woman in her 70s.
Soundings includes poems about death and loss, poems which show a profound love of nature and art, (especially music and music-makers), a deep affection for family, and a sustaining faith in God. In the section entitled Reading Poems, the reader will find styles and meters of master poets such as Hopkins and Dickinson examined and cleverlyused.