Poetry. The expansiveness of the poems in Sandra Miller's extraordinary first book requires a different page: one in which white space frames and shapes the physicality of each poem, title, and word. Among Miller's influences are the Russian avant-garde artists of the turn of the twentieth century; her poems are as sculptural as the page permits, in "packets" rather than stanzas that move visually as well as narratively through the work. Passionate, these are poems that are battle standards in the defense of art, poetry, and the intelligence of the ear. "Delicate and sure, spare and very, very precise," is how Cole Swensen describes them. "They haunt. They break your heart. They make you want to live. ORIFLAMME marks a new direction in American poetry. No one else is doing anything like it, yet."

Author City: SAN MARCOS, CA USA

Sandra Doller (nee Miller) is the author of two books: ORIFLAMME (Ahsahta Press, 2005) and CHORA (Ahsahta Press, 2010). She is the founder and editrice of 1913, a magazine and press carried by Small Press Distribution, and teaches at Cal State San Marcos.