at first & then

Danielle Rose is a poet who keeps her eye close to the ground in which we are raised—close to the categories which define (and often displace) us. To the extent that the feminine is reclaimed, analogies from nature are used to reveal or subvert finality, as in the migration patterns of mourning doves, the “toward or away,” the incessant motion. As Rose notes, the tools we have are insufficient—the body map, itself, “a violence.” I could not put this book away, and I will never forget it.

—Alina Stefanescu