Like prints rushed to the screening room, the poems of Kinsolving's debut hit simultaneous notes of specificity and vagueness, as if the rest of the story remains to be shot. In a familiar, no longer New York School blend of the quotidian and the quixotic, she takes on international politics, the violent death of a relative and the classic urgency of losing and finding love; and yet it is the occasional searing private moment, and not the thematic scope, that makes many of these poems shine.
"The passion, playfulness, and regret in these wonderful poems will make many women think this book was written just for them."
Susan Cheever
"What rings with authenticity in Susan Kinsolving's poems is a lovely severity. . . Sorrow and courage and pleasure register themselves in lucid distillations, like the purities of winter air."
Anthony Hecht
"Things just are,' Susan Kinsolving writes, in a matter-of-fact tone that belies a fiery intensity. In her poetry, commonplace things are imbued with a magical aura. Her wry wit clarifies as it deepens a tragic vision."
