RavePittsburgh Post-GazetteMany poets are struggling to overcome the self-conflating claustrophobia of the personal lyric. In Carson’s work, we can watch her discover ways of propelling a long, strong current through a set of poems, like the continuity in an oratorio ... Carson’s lines are likewise cadenced short and long, made of snatches of conversations, conveying relationships that are sinuous, clasping and releasing ... These poems invite you not to worry but rather to submit to the dizzying intoxication of a fabulous story with its compressed cast of characters ... This is an astounding book, showing how far erudition and fluency can go in the service of emotion.
