"A poem is a lens that focuses the light of the known world, and such powers are most evident when a poet dares to innovate in terms of form. Erin Murphy's 'demi-sonnets, ' nimble in their concision and music, deliver both memories and alchemies. Junior high voices rise 'like bird chatter into empty tree / branches'; a paper clip claims its tongue; an aging mother becomes 'a jet burning off / excess fuel.' With each poem, ASSISTED LIVING develops Murphy's concern with the search for intimacy, particularly in moments fraught by illness or injustice. Frank, resilient, these poems insist on glimmering with transformed light." --Sandra Beasley, author of COUNT THE WAVES and I WAS THE JUKEBOX "'Only the moment is eternal, ' Czeslaw Milosz famously wrote. The seven-line demi-sonnets in ASSISTED LIVING go by quickly but their staying power is immense--exactly because they contain a whole macrocosm in an instant of time. These poems unfold unflinchingly, in such a short space, and the reader is gifted with constant renewal and surprise.

But time's fleet-footedness is also the source of grief: the book is anchored by a series of stunning elegies for the speaker's mother-in-law, a woman who has lived an outsized life--she is 'a novel with too many plots' as well as 'the last scene in a classic film/ frozen on pause.' Murphy chisels words down to their musical rawness, providing us a poetry so well-wrought it is unforgettable, a charm against time's erasure. ASSISTED LIVING does not defeat time--nothing can--but these poems master it through art." --James Allen Hall, author of NOW YOU'RE THE ENEMY "Erin Murphy's invented form, the demi-sonnet, is small but alarmingly penetrative. Curious? Read 'Good Measure' to feel the slippage in your personal sense of scale and perspective. These poems, simultaneously eerie and straightforward, exert a cumulative effect as they disclose the haunted domestic." --Claire Bateman, author of SCAPE and LOCALS.