Whole Sky

Poetry ...It is Pamela Kircher's genius that she makes of familiar material something unexpected and strange. She knows how to move a poem through rhythm and syntax so that it arrives finally at a wholly other place without having left us behind. There is great sadness in these poems, and excoriating vision, but they are a joy to read because they are so meticulously constructed: against the forces of destruction stands the greater power of this poet's shaping force. This is hard-won work, luminous and necessary and alive. --Michael Ryan