The Diary of Saint Marion

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Gloria Monaghan's poems with their essentially straightforward eminently readable language also explode with surprises-a sly wit a sprinkling of deliciously unusual verbiage (oaknut cupule plumule-all in the same poem!) and a wealth of startlingly touching details (the book opens with a little hand-grenade of a poem about a tiny opera bag that Couldn't have held much more/than a few coins for tipping a bathroom attendant/or purchasing milk). This whole book bursts with a rare freshness to be applauded and savored.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)> </span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>-Lloyd Schwartz Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>Who's on First? New and Selected Poems</em></p><p></p>