Employing a combination of narrative, musicality, and haunting imagery, Messick has delivered a masterful and evocative volume of which any poet should be proud . . . That this is her first volume is simply remarkable and bodes well for the poems that will surely follow this outstanding debut.
—James Kimbrell is a poet, professor, and Director of Creative Writing at Florida State University.
An enchanting collection about a girl’s rite of passage from her birth, to an adolescent’s department store visit for girdles, seamed hose, and pointy bras; to the birth of her own baby; to the transformations that age makes to her skin; to the heart-tugging longing for a “kind escort, someone in light,/ a beckoning” at the end of life. It is all here—the rituals that attempt to put handles on the mysteries and those that barely confront the realities of a life fully lived. Marda Messick provides what I have longed for in poetry—a voice like Sharon Olds’ but one with an impressive gravitas and delicacy at the core.
—Jill Paláez Baumgaertner, Poetry Editor, The Christian Century
Marda Messick invites readers to travel with her on a heroine’s journey from youth through old age, to death and beyond. There is a universality to her poetry that will speak deeply to women at every stage of life, and will help men who love these women to understand and appreciate the female experience. This is a book to return to, offering more with each subsequent reading.
—Wilderness Sarchild, author of Old Women Talking, a poetry collection, and co-author of Wrinkles, The Musical, a play about women and aging.