Two new books of verse by area writers came to our attention recently: Yvona Fast’s “Different” and Caperton Tissot’s “The Beat Within.”

Yvona Fast’s slim volume “Different” was published by FootHills Publishing, which has been since 1986 a resource for upstate New York writers, allowing them to see their words in print, often for the very first time. “Different” is No. 73 in FootHills Publishing’s “Springfed Chapbook Series.” A “chapbook” is a common form in which poets publish their work, a sort of mini-collection. In this mostly rhymed verse, Fast speaks of being neurologically different, the painfulness of being different, and the relief that she found in self-acceptance and in her faith.

In “The Puzzle Piece” she avers:

A square won’t fit a round hole.

It’s through acceptance we prevail.

Yvona Fast’s columns and articles about food have been featured in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise and elsewhere, as well as in the book “Garden Gourmet,” and she has also written a career guide for individuals with asperger syndrome.

Caperton Tissot self-published “The Beat Within,” subtitled Poetry: Another Round, through her Snow Owl Press initiative. This is apparently a follow-up to her 2014 book of verse, “Adirondack Flashes and Floaters.” It is quite a lengthy collection, at 151 pages, and is divided into sections of musical theme, as the book’s title and subtitle suggest: “Country,” “The Blues,” “Ballads,” for example. Often rhyming, they track the seasons and the natural world, with some philosophizing about the meaning of it all.

In “Cascade Mountain,” she notes:

We are but trifles in these

Blue peaks recede in valley-haze.

—

And from “Out of Ashes”:

Out of the blasted ground.

Out of death and destruction,

A slender green stem grows,

Thin hope for resurrection.

—

Tissot has written and published several books about Adirondack life and history, as well as newspaper columns and articles.