The Fire’s Edge by Nancy Richardson

Nancy Richardson’s poems concern coming of age in the rust-belt of Ohio during a period of decay of the physical and political structures that made the region once solid and predictable.  These are poems that chart the shifting of the foundations upon which a life is built and the unpredictability of events that have profound personal and political consequences.

These terse, understated poems pack a great emotional punch. Unerringly, Nancy Richardson hits the mortal vulnerabilities and the socio-political ones. This book is a history of the grievous wastefulness of a post-WWII United States that in many ways has gone to hell; yet there is no accusation here. Rather, there is the poetry of what has been shattered—be it in a motorcycle accident or voter fraud or the Kent State killings—and cannot be put back together.

—Baron Wormser