“…one of the best first books in my lifetime…Moving, passionate, insightful, these wonderful evocations of Eros should be appreciated by anyone interested—and who isn’t—in ‘the pressure of one body against another.'” —Bill Knott
“The passionate, sardonic voice in these poems is that of a woman who boldly roams the universe and offers us meditations on love, sex, and the gritty mysteries of being female.” —Minnie Bruce Pratt
Out of Print
Limited copies available; query the author for more information
Book Reviews
from Publisher’s Weekly:
“This promising first book offers an eccentric commentary on love, sex and family. Roberts has a dexterous poetic voice, one that either tells a story or, better yet, disappears behind the story, allowing you to enter it. Roberts also has a keen ability to spot the perfect metaphor…Roberts lets her cadenced poetic voice carry the poem, allowing it to find its own language and story line. These poems comprise the lucky side of the wishbone.”
from Letter Ex: Chicago’s Poetry Newsmagazine by Gregg Shapiro:
“This uncommonly original and spirited book of poems is as bountiful as the universe itself. It is divided into three diverse sections, each of which bristles with a kind of glorious energy…There is a delightfully subversive list quality to the poems ‘Imagine This’ and ‘Darwin in Reverse,’ like layers being delicately but deliberately peeled away. The mother in ‘Mother’ is a female horseshoe crab and a sharp metaphor at that. While the daughter in ‘Daughter’ comes face to face with the real father who failed her and the dream father she created on the page…All in all, this book is an astronomical debut. Next time you look up at the stars, the one shining brightest might be a poet named Kim Roberts.”
Sample Poem
HOW TO IMAGINE DEAFNESS
Darken your ears until the tunnels
with their intricate clockwork
are sheathed in pitchy calm.
Hum a little blue, to yourself,
but keep it secret. The small bones
will dip delicately, like willow leaves
that merely brush the water’s surface,
in their repose. The small hairs
will lie down together like tentacles.
Listen: the lake stops its lapping
repetition of sibilance
(physicist, Sisyphus, sassafras)
and the great snail unfurls itself,
stretches its tongue longingly
toward the distant echo surge
that must be the heart.
Corona/Crown