My Own Name Seems Strange to Me

Poetry. Karen Whalley's second book takes up the question of identity in the face of isolation and loss. At its core are twin wounds--the death of a father and the end of a marriage--and the struggle to define oneself in the ensuing absences. "Somewhere there is always light / To cast the world into shadows," she writes in the moving poem "Dusk." And yet this collection teems with lucid observations of vitality and life--from the frail perfections of a butterfly's wings to the grace of an elk in traffic. Whalley's collection bravely questions the nature of self, and finds answers in unexpected places.