Face Up

<p><strong>WINNER OF THE 2021 OLEB BOOKS POETRY PRIZE</strong></p><p><br></p><p><em>Face Up: A Collection of Outlaw Poems</em> is a volume of unmistakable power. Defying social expectations Suzanne Nielsen writes I was born in the mid-fifties with fists for hands because / in utero / I knew life wasn't fooling around. As she explores recurrent themes of physical illness depression and addiction she demonstrates self-awareness gleaned from a life lived fully.</p><p><br></p><p>Suzanne Nielsen's poems are peopled with wry survivors attending to their lives with purpose and humor. A newly sober friend will jingle his medallion in his pocket / and mimic a canine sense of direction. An adult navigating clinical depression will climb into bed wearing . . . street clothes that haven't seen the streets for weeks. Relationships form in unexpected ways. Bertha from the Midway swore to sit on them / and I swore to watch her back / and we became best friends for those ten days. In these poems of tenderness and grit sorrow is always accompanied by wonder.</p>