Terrible blooms

de Melissa Stein

In this lush, disturbing second collection from APR/Honickman Prize winner Melissa Stein, exquisite images are salvaged from harm and survival. Set against the natural world's violence--both ordinary and sublime--pain shines jewel-like out of these poems, illuminating what lovers and families conceal. Stein uses her gifts for persona and lyric richness to build worlds that are vivid, intricate, tough, sexy, and raw: "over and over // life slapping you in the face / till you're newly burnished / flat-out gasping and awake." Breathless with risk and redemption, Terrible blooms shows how loss claims us and what we reclaim.