If the House

In this collection, well-known spaces both reassure and imperil, and language both anchors and disorients. Molly Spencer's poems navigate the landscapes of human experience, building upon the cycles of a household throughout the seasons of the year. Ordinary places and things-a kitchen table, a memory, a beloved's thigh-are viewed as if through the lens of a shifting, unsettling kaleidoscope. This incisive volume suggests that the comfort we find in familiarity and routine belies the unease...