"Images of real and symbolic violence ricochet and reflect off each
other in this elegant and disturbing collection. The poems chronicle,
among other things, a history of childhood abuse and its after effects,
but in a larger sense, they also explore through the lens of myth, art,
religion, and popular culture, the underlying and often unacknowledged
brutality beneath even mundane events.''
--from the judges' citation: PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award