A Pretty Little Wilderness

In this time of family separation and prisons for profit Cassandra Dallett has transformed her personal trauma into a brilliant artistic argument for decarceration. Of Californias prisoner-firefighters she writes when the fall is dry hot / windy and desperate/they throw poor and brown bodies/ at the flames/ like they always have. A love letter for an imprisoned partner a scathing indictment of racism and a source of infinite beauty A Pretty Little Wilderness is another devastating gorgeous triumph by one of the hottest poets in the San Francisco Bay Area. If Oakland were to create a Poet Laureates position Id nominate Cassandra who puts her art where her great heart is.Jan Steckel author of The Horizontal Poet