"Fierce poems speaking out against the anonymity enforced by indifference, abuse, and sheer mortality. Fierce in their plain speaking, but not at all plain in their musicality. A lushness of imagery, passionate cadences, a voice that witnesses pain even as it celebrates love in all its guises. Rachel Rose has written an extraordinarily clear-eyed first book." Daphne Marlatt. "In images both harrowing and beautiful, always “Luminescent/under the meat', this work moves me profoundly, as it disturbs." Mary di Michele. "Rachel Rose is writing a poetry of intense witness and emotional drive, always marked by the distinctive tang of raw experience and the sort of wisdom which can only be learned by a heart that is fully engaged." Don McKay.