In her haunting fourth collection, National Poetry Series winner Joan Murray takes the challenge of performing poetry's original and still necessary tasks in the uncertain landscape of a new millennium.
Widely praised for the exceptional humanity and technical virtuosity of her earlier collections, Murray now explores the daily struggles of life and death in the natural world, the hidden pleasures and ironies of life in small-town America, the vulnerable underside of artistic communities, and the myriad complexities that pervade our dreams and relationships in this new century. With wit, generosity, and unflinching honesty, Murray gives us poems that mourn and praise, illuminate and challenge.

Joan Murray is a National Poetry Series Winner, Poet-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany, author of three prize-winning books of poetry: Queen of the Mist, Looking for the Parade, and The Same Water, editor of Poems to Live By in Uncertain Times, and general editor of the forthcoming Best of Pushcart Poetry.