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This book was prompted by my near total engagement in the Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Judge Kavanaugh's statement after the accusations against him were investigated (September-early October 2018). The timing of the hearings overlapped the 85th birthday celebrations of Ruth Bader Ginsburg who experienced bias by the legal establishment despite her outstanding scholarship and impeccable credentials, simply because she was a woman and a mother. Her persistence in the face of roadblocks led to her confirmation by an overwhelming majority of the Senate to become only the second woman Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O'Connor was the first). Their stories, and the stories of women throughout history (at least some of them), provided an outlet for my frustration and became the subject matter for this book. Following Paul Auster, "Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead."

"I can't tell anyone, so I tell everyone", wrote Frigyes Karinthy1 in one of his poems, lending his voice to all those who hide silently behind their actions before deciding to take up a pen and expose their thoughts. To be able to do this, to "tell everyone", one has to ignore the time-honoured adage: "A secret life is a happy life". But the desire to "have one's say" triumphs over the fear of confronting the world with all its dangers, real or imaginary. A psychoanalyst who undertakes to go over the course of her professional life and presents the ideas connected with it will, of course, revive certain memories. To be able to speak about herself, the analyst, like everyone else, must overcome some resistance. Analytic practice is based on the ability to listen, to remain attentive to the other. However, an analyst can only listen to those who come to him in search of themselves if he listens to himself. Immersion into the patient's past causes his own past to resurface. By changing the internal narration, the analysis makes it possible to carve out a place for oneself in the world. The psychoanalyst chooses this practice out of a desire to understand, but as the author of the present work points out, at times he must also be able to accept his own inability to understand, or the fact that he may misunderstand. The practice of psychoanalysis gives rise to questions formulated in discussions with colleagues.

Dodo Feathers: Poems 1989-2019 is about eclipse and extinction, flightlessness, and lost futures both public and private. The title comes from the poem ACounterfactual@: The opposite of hope is not despair, it is the wish for freedom in the past long gone: the unaborted second term of RFK, the Yorkist claim triumphant in the field, Arbenz, Lumumba, Mossadeq, alive and signing legislation with a Dodo-feather pen.

In the early days of the development of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis, Freud took particular notice of the plays of Sophocles and Shakespeare's Hamlet. This was largely in support of his description of the Oedipal phase of human development.Later, he and many psychoanalysts, as well as many non-analysts, utilized the concepts relating to the impact of a dynamic unconscious and the effects of early life experiences as a lens through which to enlarge our understanding of a variety of cultural phenomena. Accordingly, philosophy, psychology, history, anthropology, as well as other disciplines were studied. Similarly, some writers of fiction used psychoanalytic concepts to characterize their characters. It is interesting to note, as did Freud, that some writers did so quite unconsciously, as did Schnitzler, Stendhal and Proust. Unfortunately, although many of these works provided readers with valuable contributions, some were formulaic and scanted the overdetermined world surrounding their subjects.As the author of the following essays, I trust I have generally avoided the pitfalls of such constricting views.

These stories illustrate the paradox that fiction is an opening to truth. Each story brings out the truth of a person, time and place while it also is a devoted search for truth. Through the characters portrayed, the real protagonist that knits life together is a searing hunger for emotional reality, the truth of our being. And as readers, we feel the sharp, undulating realities of emotional life as they reveal truths of a moment, of an individual, of a zeitgeist. The more we can bear, the more we can grow. Merle Molofsky, a psychoanalyst and poet, takes us on adventures with and through the human spirit. Michael Eigen, The Challenge of Being Human These are all extraordinary stories, spanning the range from realistic and socially penetrating commentary to the most philosophically speculative. Emphasis is on strong characterization, bringing out a picture of the essential self, whether in conflict with the imposition of social limitations, conflicting notions of who one is, or the struggle to arrive at personal integrity. Wondrous situations are presented that expand upon the conventionally realistic and seem to draw on aspects of magical realism, science fiction and the psychoanalytic merging of past and present experience in the mind.Lee Jenkins, Right of PassageNecessary Voices are exceptionally necessary for those of us who wish to hear stories of an authentic life. Merle Molofsky has written about people we think we know or knew, with exquisite details of what it means to truly live one's life. Each character is a survivor. They are more than fictional characters. We know them because they are us. They are our necessary, often unspoken and unseen selves. They come to life through Molofsky's poignant and remarkable stories. If you wish to enter the bittersweet existence of another and live the magic and wonder of story, then you must read Necessary Voices.Fanny Brewster, Archetypal Grief: Slavery's Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss

The words collected here were written because they were a necessity at the time. For each occasion, they fulfilled a specific and sometimes different purpose: reflect on a relationship, engage in a new one, or mourn a lost one. Sometime the necessity was out of duty towards those who were left behind, or to share a happy or sad experience, or trying to master and anticipate those experiences. Relationships are at the core of these writings. The relationships could be at the individual level, familial, communal, at a national level or even broader. They could also involve multiple levels. Over many years, these writings were stored as we collect memories, as souvenirs collect dust. Until, one day, I started dusting off those real or imagined memories. They were gathered and they met in this collection. And then, they started talking to each other, communicating without any control, like a Golem escaping his creator.

"Carefully balanced in terms of the different psychoanalytic schools and with sensitiveappreciation of the subjective dimension of psychoanalytic practice, this unique text exploresfailures in psychoanalytic treatment - both objective and subjective . . . .the reader is treatedto a panorama of insightful responses."-Gerald J. Gargiulo, PhDAuthor, Quantum Psychoanalysis,Essays on Physics, Mind and Analysis TodayThis most welcome reissue of a unique now classic collection of essays by a diverse groupof eminent psychoanalysts from the US and internationally incisively addresses the criticalquestion of the meaning and nature of clinical failures in psychoanalysis, one which has beengenerally sadly ignored. These stimulating, open-minded and thoughtful essays explore whatwe can learn from such failures to bring progress in psychoanalysis.-Douglas Kirsner, PhD, Author Unfree Associations;Emeritus Professor, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia

In the Floyd Archives is a cartoon novel (with footnotes!) lightly based on Freud's famous case histories - the Wolf Man, the Rat Man, Dora and Little Hans. But in this wildly inventive comic, the analyst is a bird and his patients are animals too: Wolfman is a passive-aggressive wolf with identity issues, Rat Ma'am, an obsessive-compulsive rat, Lambskin a depressed lamb (or lambskin), and Bunnyman is paranoid.

Mother May I? is the sequel to the comic In the Floyd Archives. In this hilarious riff on the work of the child psychoanalysts Melanie Klein and DW Winnicott, the stars are Melanin Klein, a small black sheep who adores talking about ta-tas and widdlers, plus her three kids - Melittle Klein, a bitter kitten, Little Hans, a violent bunny, and Squiggle Piggle, a pig whose tail creates pictures when pulled.

Allan Frosch, who died on October 28, 2016, at the age of 78, was esteemed as a psychoanalyst, teacher, mentor and writer; he also was treasured as a friend and colleague. The qualities that brought him such high regard were evident: a keen intelligence, integrity, thoughtfulness, careful scholarship; he had a serious demeanor but was kind, warm, engaging and without self-importance. He also had a merry disposition and could be fun to be with.It was apparent that psychoanalysis was the perfect field for Allan, and that he was deeply involved in and loved the work. I knew him best as a member of a small group in which we met together for nineteen years. Our mission was to read our way through the twenty-three volumes of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works ofSigmund Freud. We sought to question, clarify, explicate and appreciate what we read, and Allan excelled at the task. Our own experiences as clinicians contextualized our understanding, and as we went along we often brought up vignettes from treatments we each were conducting to provide illustrations or pose conundrums. Such instances offered a good sense of what Allan was like as a therapist, and how sens itive and astute an analyst he was. He'd had an early career as an actor, and that proclivity to capture the essence of another was carried forth into his analytic work, where it funded the empathic disposition that so well informed his clinical understanding.

To examine sexual behavior, especially monogamy, and adultery through the lens of history is especially pertinent for the twentyfirst century. To know the past, to understand that humankind has always been driven by the sexual drive, and how each culture has attempted both to gratify sexual desires and to curb them, demands our attention. We are living in a period of unbridled sexuality, a paradise for sex, that has destabilized our culture, our personal relationships, and a healthy development for our children. Will hook-ups, one-night-stands, and sex without connection become the new norm? Will loneliness and suicide dominate our culture? The author attempts to present sexual behavior from a biological, psycho-logical, and social perspective-an unmoralistic pursuit-but hopefully provocative, so that we may learn from our past and better understand our present.Charlotte Schwartz, MSS, LCSW, is a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the International Psychoanalytical Association, the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, formerly Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at New York Medical College, and Adjunct Professor at Smith College School for Social Work, as well as at NYU School of Social Work. Author of The Mythology Surrounding Freud and Klein: Implications for Psychoanalysis, coeditor of Sexual Faces, and has published numerous articles in the field.

Marco's curiosity has captured me from the very beginning. His surprising openness has impressed and touched me. I have found in his writing the gentle and free thinking of a child, a child curious to explore the analytic perspectives developed in North America, which also attract me for what I perceive as being their creativity - a creativity which I did not find in my own country, which is one of the reasons why I left it. Through his words I understood how important the history of psychoanalysis can be for us analytic candidates. It promotes an openness towards new worlds and new thoughts, allowing us to meet our fathers and to come in touch with their legacy. If this happens, this will allow us also to more easily find our own analytic identity. It is by establishing connections with little known paths and by looking for unexplored itineraries that we find our identity as human beings and even more as analysts. Freud himself gave priority to the yet unknown and unexplored aspects of our mental life.To meet the history of our field means not only getting to know other worlds and other lives, but also unexpectedly meeting pieces of our worlds and our life in unexplored continents. I thank Marco who, through his book, gives us the possibility to travel with him and get so well in touch with our multiple legacies.Chiara Bille, Argentinian Psychoanalytic Association

"Theodore Jacobs broke novel ground in 1991, thinking about analytic engagement in this classic and beloved book that is presented in this new edition, insuring interest for new generations of psychoanalysts. Jacobs's gi was (and is) the transla)on of challenging theory into its subtle depths of clinical application. He integrates ego psychology, self psychology and object relations. Nowadays he belongs in Chodorow's 2004/2019 category of 'The American Independent Tradition,' using an intersubjective ego psychology after Loewald and Erikson that is fresh and contemporary. Masterfully he shows fruitful details of how countertransference actually works verbally and nonverbally, moving along clinical process. Demonstrating how limited was the old view of the analyst's reactive feelings and attitudes as hindrance, Jacobs shows the impact of its use for self-attunement, and ultimately sensitivity to the patient's life and mind. He builds here on his 1986 inventive interactive concept of 'enactment'- a term nowadays so useful in our thinking about unmentalized traumatic aspects of analytic interaction that we have forgotten how controversial it once would have been. . . . enthusiastically recommended for all who practice and care about psychoanalysis and psychoanalytically-oriented therapies."-ROSEMARY H. BALSAM, FRCPsych (Lond), MRCP (Edin),Author of Women's Bodies in Psychoanalysis .

June 2008, I logged on-line the name of my long-missing father who I barely knew. I believed the only thing of his that was mine, was his name. Something came onto the screen I had never seen before, a blurry facsimile of his death certificate. Some of it was legible. He died in San Francisco in 1970. That was a complete surprise. There was clearly more information on the screen image, but I couldn't make it out. Writing to the California Board of Health I requested a paper copy. They needed to know my relationship to the deceased. Writing in the word daughter in relation to my father was a unique experience. The paper certificate soon arrived. Everything on the document other than the date of his birth and his profession was a surprise. Suddenly I owned more than his name.When a parent goes missing how do we shape and fill the empty space?And how do we shape and create ourselves from our missing parents? A Pot from Shards, a memoir, explores absence, imagination, movement, dance, language, psychoanalysis, love, death and the creation of a life.

Sandy Abend has been a close friend of mine for more than twenty years. For decades longer I have been an admirer of his. The qualities that make Sandy a good friend and those that make him an important contributor to our psychoanalytic literature-not to mention an outstanding clinician-are, I think, quite similar. He combines qualities that we don't expect to find together: he is at once gentle and firm, respectful of tradition (even a "true-believer") and openminded, conservative and innovative, convinced and curious. These characteristics led him to propose a project that has been an important part of our friendship for a long time now. Sandy invited me to be part of a study group he was putting together; the members were senior analysts, all identified with particular points of view in which were entrenched. But the announced purpose of the group would be, as Sandy put it, "to read things that we wouldn't ordinarily read." In the balkanized psychoanalytic world of the time (and still although to alesser extent today) this wasn't the kind of thing that one would imagine could engage the interest of analysts who were deeply committed to ideas and institutions that had shaped their long and successful professional careers. But it worked. Or, I should say, it is working, because the group continues to meet and continues to be a highlight of the professional lives of all of us who participate in it.The spirit that moved Sandy to create our study group pervades and shapes his writing. More than many of today's thinkers he is committed to a particular theoretical perspective; he is certainly not a pluralist nor to say the least) is he the sort of analyst who seeks out and embraces the latest trend. Sandy coined the term "modern conflict theory" and he remains loyal to the theory's ideas and to its seminal thinkers. The loyalty is neither simply personal nor abstractly conceptual; he understands and deeply appreciates the enduring clinical value of the contributionsof earlier generations of psychoanalysts.

George Northrup's artistic palette is dazzling and razor-sharp; each poem in this collection seduces the reader to want more, to be enlightened and/or entertained by his ability to strip away pretense and get to what matters. His virtuosic range seems nonstop; when you read these poems you sense his ear and heart mining for precise language and compassion. Several poems in this compilation have an articulated self that has learned not to take life too seriously.They are wry, fiercely funny, painfully truthful poems, and they lend a hand in creating this marvelous, diverse landscape of poetic inspiration.~GLADYS L. HENDERSON, Suffolk County (NY) Poet Laureate 2017-2019

"This is an exciting and excited collection of essays by a talented group of psychoanalysts, scholars and artists who take us right into the dark, antic, ribald, mocking heart and brilliant mind of that enfant terrible of Spanish film--Pedro Almodóvar. His wildly joyous, and viciously murderous, transgressive social misfits loving and torturing each other leap out here on the edge of fragmentation - yet are held together by this analytic approach that never lectures but urges exploration. The chapters are a film festival--a carnival of his movies. Spanish history and how it holds trauma is also offered. Power, desire and intense passion is fulsomely addressed by the editors; a fascinating read."Rosemary H. Balsam, F.R.C. Psych., Assoc. Clinical Prof Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine. Training and Supervising Analyst, Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. Author: Women's Bodies in Psychoanalysis, Routledge.

A delightfully illustrated! How a dinosaur named Rexy learns steps to and value of friendship. A good tool for teachers and parents or anyone in a therapeutic, scholastic, or parental setting. Perfect for preschool and kindergarten children.

In the appendices, there is a concentration, with a special attention to detail, on the clinical data experienced on Ward 10 and then on Ward 24. In both, the evolution of the therapeutic community is described, denoting the stages of development, accompanied by a running commentary. Ward 10 is organized into 3 subsections as is ard 24, concerning Therapeutic Community, Living in Reality, and Individual Therapy Sessions. The material is generally verbatim, faithfully representative of the action and intention of the patients, personnel, myself and importantly, Reverend Dod. He and other personnel were essential for the core, spiritual nature that wove throughout the therapeutic sessions as a whole. Again, Volume Two is presented for the serious clinician, invested in research into the social, interpersonal, and intrapsychic aspects of alienation from self and its restitution.

Circles of Change represents the culmination of Dr. Abrahams' seven decade career as a psychoanalyst. In this two volume book he comes full circle from his roots as one of the creative leaders of America institutional psychiatry starting at Fort Knox Military Prison and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. to return from a long sojourn in private practice in Southern California to Atascadero State Hospital from 1990 through 1996, which is the subject of this study. During his unique and varied career, Dr. Abrahams' studied with, was in analysis and interacted with luminaries of American psychoanalysis such as Frieda Fromm Reichmann, Harry Stack Sullivan, James Rosen, Edith Weigert and Karl Menninger. He truly deserves a place, as this book demonstrates, as one of their peers. He has made singular contributions to psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly with respect to the treatment of those patients who have been considered least accessible to traditional psychoanalytic therapy. Long before the seminal works of Kernberg and Kohut, which are referenced in the annotated bibliography, he developed successful models and techniques for treating patients with narcissistic and psychopathic personalities as well as psychosis and mood disorders.

All that patients need, including patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, is a competent therapist. They do not need shock treatment or even medication. These papers share what I think a competent therapist can use. I hope that competent therapists can make use of this book, as well as those who are not yet competent therapists but who aspire to become one. I think that Drs. Cosgro and Widener have done an excellent job in selecting the papers for this compilation. I have spent more than half a century as a professional psychoanalytic psychologist. This book is a compilation of what I have learned in a lifetime.All that patients need, including patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, is a competent therapist. They do not need shock treatment or even medication. These papers share what I think a competent therapist can use. I hope that competent therapists can make use of this book, as well as those who are not yet competent therapists but who aspire to become one. I think that Drs. Cosgro and Widener have done an excellent job in selecting the papers for this compilation. I have spent more than half a century as a professional psychoanalytic psychologist. This book is a compilation of what I have learned in a lifetime.

What goes through a psychiatrist's mind as she sits with her patients and listens to them talk? How does she figure out how to help, and how does she deal with hearing about the pain of others all day every day? In this book, you have a "fly-on-the-wall" chance to learn the answers to these questions, as psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Mary Davis, MD, takes you through a week in her professional life. You hear about her reflections on her patients, about how she uses her training and professional experience to decide how to help them, and about how the work changes her. You learn what goes into the practice of psychotherapy and psychiatry from the viewpoint of a practitioner with decades of experience in the field.

Peter Wolson has been a pioneer and is now a master in looking at political characters and issues with a psychoanalytic perspective. He courageously goes into a new important area in the psychoanalytic exploration of human reality, and starts a potentially revolutionary contribution of our science to the community, culture and life.Stefano BologniniPast-President of the International Psychoanalytical AssociationIn Peter Wolson we find a remarkable voice writing Op-Eds and now blogging with a spirit that is unparalleled. This volume contains all of those writings and to read them is to ride a very special train of thought within a highly discerning and creative voice in the American grain.Christopher BollasAuthor of Meaning and Melancholia: Life in the Age of Bewilderment

From Chapter 1:Ten years ago, I was a psychoanalyst in a beautiful coastal community. Often, I was struck by an awareness of the abyss between the beauty of my surroundings and the gulag of my interior world. How I became aware of these feelings, why they were such important signals, and what they ultimately revealed to me provided the genesis for this book. There were a multitude of personal questions as to why I had these feelings. What was my cultural context as I practiced and lived? My subjective experience as a psychoanalyst in this gulag? The Siberia-like experience did not have much in common with life by the sea. But then, one part of psychoanalysis is about what is beneath that surface.-----Science or fiction, poetry or facts? It is all this. With Christina Griffin we embark on the atmosphere of a historic migration trail departing from a tiny geographical place in central Europe which leads us over the Ocean. It is the journey of a conquest of the north-atlantic world by the 20th century's Budapest culture - intertwined with Psychoanalysis in an embrace, bringing innovative ideas and different sensibilities to the New Continent. Among them: love, closeness, understanding and tolerance as a message. This volume lets you feel the atmosphere of a fairytale which could become reality.Andre E. Haynal, M.D.,

'Don't judge a book by its cover.' This one does not engage in Freud-bashing and it is not another Freud psychobiography. Read this book carefully and with an open mind! It is an important, serious and timely treatment of the major problem confronting psychoanalysis today. By extension, it could help determine the future direction of American psychiatry and mental science. The book is compellingly readable and direct but simultaneously scholarly and edifying -- impeccably well researched in relation to the historical facts it reviews and the philosophical arguments it marshals - and it culminates in impressively realistic conclusions and practical recommendations.MARK SOLMS, Science Director of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association

In this richly textured novel that spans two continents and vastly different worlds, Daniel Jacobs eloquently shows how love orders all things. In The Distance From Home, a group of friends searches the mountaintops of Nepal for the happiness that eludes them at home. Their unforgettable journey is gripping, hopeful and heartbreaking. Weaving together friendship, art, politics and the need for love in our lives, The Distance From Home is a deeply intelligent and impressive exploration of the human heart. - Mary E. Mitchell Author of Americans in Space and Starting Out Sideways, PEN Discovery Award Winner for Fiction I couldn't put down The Distance from Home. Dan Jacobs has given us a modern version of Homer's Odyssey, with a female protagonist whose restless travels reflect an early traumatic loss. Jacobs combines a skillful capacity for observing and rendering relationships with a psychoanalytic awareness of the inevitable impediments and challenges to reaching "home" - the security of self-knowledge and relatedness. -Richard Almond, Psychoanalyst, co-author of The Therapeutic Narrative: Fictional Relationships and the Process of Psychological ChangeIn this perceptive novel, the distance from home is greater than the miles between Manhattan and Kathmandu. When seven middle-aged friends leave their complex lives to trek the Himalayas, the physical demands and proximity to one another begin to fray everyone's nerves. Then Hannah, our sharp-eyed, vulnerable narrator is stricken with life-threatening illness and everything changes radically. Dan Jacobs unspools an insightful and riveting story. Sally Brady, Author of A Box of Darkness

Making analy(c subjec(vity his life(me focus, these selected papers span four decades of Irwin Hirsch's astute examina(on of the analyst's par(cipa(on in the process. From an observingpar (cipant model, he traces his trajectory toward a par(cularly human, 'idiosyncra(cally flflawed' yet unself-consciously loving analy(c presence. He exhorts us to recognize and embody our uniquely flflawed yet nurturant and facilita(ve capaci(es-essen(al to an evolved analy(c stance. He demonstrates these capaci(es with characteris(c humility, unsparing self-reflflec(on, and generosity of spirit. In this book, Hirsch outlines the contours of a humane, loving, and ethical analy(c presence. -Andrea Celenza, PhD.

From the Introduction by author: Love, Rivalry, and the UnconsciousJane Austen's novels have been praised by the literary critics, loved by the 'ordinary reader', and made into many films (Southam, 1967; Wiltshire, 2001). Psychoanalytic readings of the six great novels elaborate Austen's famous description of her 'subject' to her niece Anna. "You are now collecting your People delightfully, getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life;-3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on' (Le Faye, 2011, p. 287). Austen's plots and language dramatize the love and mutual identifications, the jealousy and competitive strivings of family life as young women and men fall in love and marry. Austen's narrative method, free indirect discourse, presents the conflicted feelings and impulses of her heroines and heroes, as they separate from their families, relive early sibling and oedipal rivalries, and form attachments outside the family.

In her poignant new collection, Rehearsal, poet Irene Willis gifts us with a remarkable discovery-that to embrace the truths of dying is to celebrate life. In clear precise language, Willis enables us to share the couple's deep love shining through details of their days, to know that no matter one's age, the moment of death surprises. The book's second section deals with the after time, as in the remarkable poem titled "Hers" when "she started to own her own life"-that the loneliness of widowhood brings with it the strengths of independence. Blended in are poems of vivid childhood experience, her mother's aging time, exchanges with other poets. To read these poems by Irene Willis is to have one's own life enriched by her clarity of vision, her voice of wisdom and courage. -Charlotte Mandel, author of To Be The Daylight Each passing year of life, each new wrinkle of the skin, each hesitation of limbs and, above all, each loss of a loved one, is a preparation for what awaits us at the end of our lives' journeys. Nonetheless, the sojourn brings us glimpse of great joy, pride, musing, thrill, the pleasure of efficacy, lust, and yes, also sadness, defeat, shame, regret and remorse. Irene Willis offers us lexical snapshots taken along this bittersweet highway and does so with great eloquence and dignity.Salman Akhtar Author of Freshness of the Child (2018)

If you've wondered how it must feel to be a stranger in a strange land, Kalpana Asok tells you in these gentle poems. Gentle, but with a hint of irony, as when, in the voice of a new arrival, an Indian woman introduces herself to a new American neighbor, and then, in an almost footnoted last line that lets us know she was never invited into the house: "Dear Ethel, Thank you for the lemonadeand the visits on your porch." The feeling of dislocation surfaces sharply in another, when she asks, "My mother's in my mirror/is she walled in/am I locked out . . . ." Vivid images greet us throughout, as she explores, wide-eyed, this new world, where a "chatty American" wears a "different baseball cap every day" and is "full of information." The gentle voice rises in indignation in strong, tightly crafted poems about social injustice, as in "I Can't Breathe," with a first stanza ending in "Yes, metoo." Remembering or perhaps dreaming, she gives us a "Tiger Preserve," with a "Lurching blind-drunk female /in the middle of the day/Slapping holy ground . . . ." The gentle voice returns in this lovely debut collection, ending with a lullaby, "Tenderly," in hummed syllables: "Umhmm,--Irene Willishmmm hmm hmm . . . ." Read it with delight and continued discovery.