Once

<p>These poems are shadowed by illness both civic and personal and by the mysterious currents of grief. What emerges over the course of the volume is a meditation not only on a daughter's relationship with her mother but also on a citizen's to her nation. Throughout Once examines the forces that shape war divorce and death exploring personal culpability and charting uncertain new beginnings as the speakers seek to build homes in a shattered land and find whole selves amid broken thwarted relationships.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em>from "Frontier"</em><br /><br /><em>. . . At times<br />I felt sick intoxicated<br />by BPA and mercury.<br />At other times I fasted and the stars<br />stumbled clear from the vault.<br />Up there the universe stands around drunk.<br />I hope the Lord is kind to us<br />for we engrave our every mistake . . .</em></p><p> </p><p> </p>