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“Dense, imagistically and metaphorically inventive, [Lisa Fay Coutley’s] poems address risky but fundamental subjects in a wholly original way: the powerful need for connection that at the same time can undermine the equally powerful need for independence, the sad legacies of abuse, and the mixed blessings of parenthood.”

–Alan Shapiro, author of Reel to Reel

“Coutley deftly alternates moments of lyric contemplation with the brutal–and banal–realities of love. […] It’s impossible not to admire Coutley’s fierce language, her restless line, her attention to form, and her understanding that creation and destruction are just two sides of the same coin.”

–Sandra Beasley, author of Let Me Count the Waves

“Coutley intentionally disrupts the calm lake of lyricism she crosses: her craft capable of quick associative leaps and syntactical nuances, powered by a Plathian candor [and] she allows the current of images to take her, even dipping below the surface of the moment or narrative to see the life beneath.”

–Emilia Phillips, author of Signaletics

“You could chisel poems like ‘Respiration’ and ‘Errata’ into stone, erect them in city parks for all human kind to read.  Slow down now, these poems bid us, drown awhile in the sweet and haunting fires of the human heart.”

–John Rybicki, author of We Bed Down Into Water