"I've not encountered a first book of poems this dazzling and bemused since day one. Shaughnessy's work is larkish, unseemly, and riddled with joy. These poems are not plainspoken, but luminous, impenitent, promiscuous. A brilliant sack of silk and ink and willfulness. What a pleasure to have such truths told sexy, seamless, slant." -- Lucie Brock-Broido "Freedom of verse, freedom of love, certainly, but Brenda Shaughnessy has employed those old liberations for new exploits: hers is an imagination free to pass through all the locked chambers of association--and, in its delight in doing so, grants the poet freedom to find herself. As she says, in the unmistakeable accents of Primavera: 'I live to leave, but I never either . / Come, let us miss / another wintertime.
'" -- Richard Howard "Edgy and erotic, characterized by bravado and odd beauty . A dazzling first book." -- Laura Rosenthal, Minneapolis Star-Tribune " Interior with Sudden Joy is a quirky, voluptuous thing. It's filled with unexpected, and sometimes opaque, imagery. And it constantly surprises with its tendency to merge harsh and smooth rhythms and sounds . An intriguing debut for a gifted young writer." -- Jennifer Poyen, San Diego Union-Tribune "A heady, infectious celebration of the range and peculiarity of erotic life." -- The New Yorker ptuous thing.
It's filled with unexpected, and sometimes opaque, imagery. And it constantly surprises with its tendency to merge harsh and smooth rhythms and sounds . An intriguing debut for a gifted young writer." -- Jennifer Poyen, San Diego Union-Tribune "A heady, infectious celebration of the range and peculiarity of erotic life." -- The New Yorker ptuous thing. It's filled with unexpected, and sometimes opaque, imagery. And it constantly surprises with its tendency to merge harsh and smooth rhythms and sounds . An intriguing debut for a gifted young writer.
" -- Jennifer Poyen, San Diego Union-Tribune "A heady, infectious celebration of the range and peculiarity of erotic life." -- The New Yorker ptuous thing. It's filled with unexpected, and sometimes opaque, imagery. And it constantly surprises with its tendency to merge harsh and smooth rhythms and sounds . An intriguing debut for a gifted young writer." -- Jennifer Poyen, San Diego Union-Tribune "A heady, infectious celebration of the range and peculiarity of erotic life." -- The New Yorker.