The Fire in Hand

The Fire in Hand is a gorgeous complex collection of poetry and what an extraordinary eye for detail Karen Torop has. Whether she is praising the beauty of two / high-seated tractors exploring the essential contradiction of loving both her cat and the beautiful rose-breasted grosbeak killed by the cat--the rose-red / on its breast a bib of blood--or watching her mother approaching death her bones loosely covered mean as spokes Torops gift to us is her insistence that we must pause look beyond habit in order to love the world in all its glorious contradictions.