Poetry. Human identity testing itself: are the speakers of these poems mother, teacher, creative artist—or are they merely bones to be sorted and juggled? The ramifications of identity ("we'd know... the translation / into mother to be exaltation. Murder, also") leap up sharply in the book's central poem, "Snuff Ballet," in which one speaker, a dancer, is tested by inquisitors who may be a board from whom she seeks a grant. But perhaps these voices, which quickly become intimate and judgmental ("When was the last time you had sex?"), are merely criticism internalized, part of the "one-woman show."

Author City: PHILADELPHIA, PA USA

Kirsten Kaschock has earned degrees from Yale University, the University of Iowa, Syracuse University, and the University of Georgia. The author of two collections of poetry, UNFATHOMS (Slope Editions, 2004) and A BEAUTIFUL NAME FOR A GIRL (Ahsahta Press, 2011), and the novel SLEIGHT (Coffee House Press, 2011) she resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she is currently a doctoral fellow in dance at Temple University.

Reviews and Other Links
Sima Rabinowitz @ NewPages
chat with Isaac Fitzgerald and Brian Spears of The Rumpus Poetry Book Club