from Open Books
With crackling wit, and seemingly with cracking knuckles, Ms. Shaw's first collection of poetry comes as a vibrant force. For an example of her wit here is, in its entirety, the poem "Portrait of My Grandfather as Rhett Butler" — "Frankly, my dear, / I don't give a darn." And, for the knuckles, this from "The First Time Your Daughter Runs Away From Home" — "And when it's no longer late dinner but predawn, / a shadow you recognize crosses the lawn, her feet raising a drift / of fallen cherry blossoms that were — as it turned out this time — // only mimicking winter. Ms. Shaw's work is jazzily musical, caustic, comical, and quite gleefully alive.
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