Poetry. "TANGLE is made of poems that ache and grieve, desire and remember, the space between words and the hand. They capture the body's grace and the tumor backlit on a screen. They are waking and dreams, a jagged tear across our sleep. They are winter and a woman's last menses. They are a daughter's final summer at home, her mouth already remembering the tomato's ripeness. Pauletta Hansel's poems are also mystery we can taste here and now. Smoke from a father's cigarette.

Packed-dirt yards. Oranges and cloves. Who we are, Hansel tell us, 'is hatched from who we were / this film of self now covering / who we will be.' These are poems to mend us." Karen Salyer McElmurry, author of Surrendered Child and Motel of the Stars".