The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus

<p>The poems of <em>The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus</em> are like all forms of story about sex and death: the life force and whatever is its negation or absence. They don't want to deny the regret rage and dread of a life but they also want to openly admit delight and joy especially through the delectations of sound and humor. Their forebears include The Old Testament Mark Twain and hillbilly music with a little Fran Lebowitz thrown in.</p><p> </p><p>Their means vary from very short lyrics; to nonce sonnets; to the multi-part prose poem The Views of the Widow's Daughter with its recurring imagery of eyes blue white and dark and a direct athwart voice that moves through a life. The poems are sometimes analogues including letter song list testament and anecdote. Some are near water - creek lake river and ocean -- the poet came up out of Florida and Georgia. And the voice often inhabits gardens which like poems must have both control and wildness to be beautiful. The poems may show it's possible to be irrepressible even in a swan song.</p><p> </p>