about staying in by Laurin B. Wolf

about staying in by Laurin Wolf drives into the dark hole of domestic violence and stays there. These chilling poems offer no redemption, just further dread and despair: …all the mis-hammered nails,/now the walls in here look like gallows. With Sexton-like haunting, Wolf builds her own skeletons, naming and lamenting: Each bone in my body/is another brick. Yet, these bleak poems deliver bravery through the speaking of them—full-out and uncensored—with beautifully crafted lines and a yearning voice: I’ve come to understand what winter wants—/fickle falling petal of a seven-sisters rose. A courageous book.

–Jan Beatty, Jackknife: New and Selected Poems, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017