Hope, as the World Is a Scorpion Fish

Liz Robbins's poems have what only the very best poems have: a sturdy toughness undergirding their tenderness. Though the body spins dervishly-almost blindly- for love and beauty, it must also accept the jolts of pain, of physical labor. As with the flowering pear trees in "On the Verge of Spring," we are ever " hopeful,/ hopeless—with [the] smell of sweat suggestive/ of work and of fear." There's a refreshing honesty in these poems as well as a tremendous amount of skill with a sensuous musical language. Each poem is a delight, something to savor.—Nance Van Winckel