Poetry. The intensely lyrical poems in Deborah Woodard's first full-length collection collapse the usual boundaries between dream and so-called reality to explore varieties of loss and the resonance of myth, classical as well as personal. Sure-footed, precise, and gorgeously intelligent, they are both solace and cause for celebration.

Deborah Woodard was born in New York City and raised in Vermont. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Irvine, and a PhD in English from the University of Washington. Her poetry and translations have appeared in Artful Dodge, The Bellingham Review, Chelsea, Harness, Monkey Puzzle, and The Threepenny Review. She has published two chapbooks of poetry: The Orphan Conducts the Dovehouse Orchestra (Bear Star Press, 1999) and The Book of Riddles (Boxcar Press, 1998). In collaboration with Giuseppe Leporace, she is currently translating the distinguished modernist Italian poet, Amelia Rosselli. A selected poems of Rosselli will be published by Chelsea Editions in 2007. Woodard teaches at the Richard Hugo House, a community arts center in Seattle.