'Only my contradictions hold me upright,' claims one of the poems in this ferociously lucid and often funny new volume by M.F. McAuliffe. On the one hand it batters us with Lear-like bleak assertions which it goes on to illustrate, most impressively, in the series of poems retelling the Orpheus myth. On the other hand, the very rhythm, almost reassuring, of other aphoristic conclusions suggests an admiration, despite everything, for the world it so passionately curses and condemns.

— Luisa Valenzuela, author, Deathcats, The Lizard's Tail, He Who Searches, Black Novel (With Argentines), Bedside Manners


These poems turn me inside out. They are close and closer and wound beautifully.

— Amy Temple Harper, author, Cramped Uptown


Her approaches range from transcendence to judicious exactitude. Myth, religion, even anatomy and economics are called into service. Since her language is pared down to piths and gists, each word combusts in strain and energy. The business is serious and the stakes are high. She lifts us higher by her clarity and craft. She cuts to the chase.

— Douglas Spangle, author, A White Concrete Day


There is elegy and orbiting and sky in your eyes and then there are The Crucifixes which leap from the Poet Goddess McAuliffe's forehead. If this were the last poetry collection on earth the gods who find it after the apocalypse will think well enough of us to resuscitate the species from this body of writing in some distant white and transDanubian blue afteroon.

— Jenny Forrester, author, Narrow River, Wide Sky


The architecture of space in this book is beautiful. There is thirst, desire, the coy and bloodlust, the late summer passing and the tired winter morning.

— Aimie Zimmerman, author, Kelley Point, poetry editor, Drunk in a Mindinght Choir (online)


If you're ready for something compellingly different, open this book.

— Andrea Hollander, author, Landscape with Female Figure, New and Selected Poems, 1982 - 2012

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$22.00 incl. postage (1 copy international)