Sally Van Doren’s imaginative new collection offers bold and beguiling poems. Uttered in intense lyrical bursts that reflect the poet’s command of language both familiar and strange, the visually dramatic moments gathered here probe the time-honored themes of love and death with candor and intimacy. The poems range in tone from a tongue-twisting search for identity to a plea to engage others in the refutation of pain: “My discreet sorrow / Hides in the dichotomy / Of your duplicitous palm / Offer me your hand / Our patty-cake will / Clap away antipathy.”
A St. Louis native, Sally Van Doren is a prize-winning poet and artist who has taught at the 92nd Street Y and other public and private institutions. She is the author of four collections of poetry, including Sex at Noon Taxes, which won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets.
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