"The bleak ferocity of Kirschner’s lines often comes nigh to overwhelming this narrative of an abused childhood but then the strength of the imagery, a richness for which this poet is known, seizes the nightmares and transforms them into events that can be handled, shaped and put aside. No, not a happy ending but one that locates dignity and the forever force of life." —Hilary Masters

"These poems are dark, iridescent beads strung along a narrative of embattled childhood that supports but never overrides the lyrical force of Kirschner’s voice and vision. The narrative begins with a mother’s violence and follows its effects upon the daughter’s inner landscape—the visions, the bouts of madness, the circling smoke of memory—as she grows older. It’s the landscape that generates the force behind these poems, rendered as it is with stunning imagery at every turn, and with urgent rhythms that push towards a kind of exorcism. These poems confront hard things head-on, but far from being sensationalistic or depressing, they are lush, fierce, and lovely." —Leslie Ullman

Elizabeth Kirschner has published five volumes of poetry and a memoir, Walking the Bones. Kirschner has been writing and teaching multi-genres for four decades. She served as faculty in Fairfield University’s low-residence MFA in Creative Writing Program and has also taught at Boston College and Carnegie Mellon University. She currently serves as a writing mentor and manuscript consultant and teaches various workshops in and around her community in Kittery Point, ME.