Lory Bedikian's The Book of Lamenting begins within a foundation of lyricism -- "On the back of every tongue in my family/ there is a dove that lives and dies." Bedikian recognizes the genuine world of the imagination, one we inhabit but often lose sight of -- a world with "floating hieroglyphics of flame," where sometimes one must "[e]mpty your pockets/ of the noise you carry" and "count olives/ in place of coins." Wisdom rises up through the losses in Bedikian's poetry. One poem begins -- "The year 1997 rose like a spiral staircase/ into a ceiling of darkness." The Book of Lamenting ascends into the darkness in a similar way -- bringing us gifts of light and memory, so that the small doves at the back of every tongue might sing. -- 2010 Levine Prize judge Brian Turner

These beautiful poems are steeped in the dark tannin of loss. Redwater rivers, blackwater rivers -- they carry on, tributaries distributing memories through the sandy landscape of home. The poems are formally measured, with an elegiac economy, quiet Eliotic echoes, the ever-presence of rain, tupelo, eelgrass, sparkleberry, oyster shell, snake. As they sensually evoke the Florida terrain, these elegant poems say there never was a Paradise to lose, we have only ever owned recurrent waves of growth and inevitable regret. -- Sidney Wade

The poems in Kimberly Burwick's Horses in the Cathedral challenge the conventional esthetics of the poetic line in nuanced and subtle ways. Burwick's music yields great and unexpected beauty, insights garnered by long and patient scrutiny. More importantly, though, these poems surprise perception and offer the lover of books that rare gift -- a mysterious world we can return to again and again, with each visit our experience augmented. -- Brian Turner, Judge, 2010 Robert Dana Prize for Poetry

These cool, hot poems about women and girls in danger and on the prowl, coming of age and being of age, are full of startling detail and vivid setting. Meitner's range, wit, compassion and her alertness to the moments where domestic and collective experience intersect, make these poems memorable. This book is a seriously good read. -- Daisy Fried, author of My Brother is Getting Arrested Again

The Vanishing Horizon is full of gritty and graceful intelligence. Consistently and sumptuously detailed, these poems amount to a kind of landscape of the soul, that aspect of self that runs the gauntlet -- weathers, wearies, kneels -- then grins and keeps on. It’s hard to make a way in this world, to see clearly without coming to deep despair. This book is good light. -- Tim Seibles, author of Buffalo Head Solos

Only Blue Body is about becoming animal in a world that is not fairytale. Exquisitely written, its poems boldly confront contemporary fear and beauty. "I've always wanted dark blue skin" writes the poet -- and it's a bruise she's after, the throat unguarded, the jaw tipped upward. Viewed from a "constricted point of light," everything is out of scale, fearfully small or far too big. Much of the imagery startles: a mosquito becomes a brood mare, a horse a grackle. You can't take your eyes off the fire's "salamander-shaped eddies" because nothing in the poem suggests its arrival, nothing predicts its exit. -- Contest judge Terese Svoboda