We hold on to what we can

In this debut collection of poems, Sarah Alcott Anderson of Exeter, N.H., explores love, longing, loss, marriage, children, and place through her own experiences. ""In mostly plainspoken poems, I explore interior and exterior landscapes--from childhood to motherhood, New England to Ireland--in the hope of honoring that we are here right now,"" she says. Poet Matt Miller in the foreword writes that Anderson's lines seem ""at times spun from a sugared lightning, at other times are as plain and enriched as Irish bog or New Hampshire granite, line and lyric come together to insist against a silence the world would have the poet embrace.