"If McHugh is serious, she's anything but grim; with all her punning, bantering, and mock scolding of herself . . . she brightens the shadowy corners of her world with verbal pyrotechnics."--The New York Times Book Review "McHugh is known as a challenging wordsmith, but, as this collection reveals, she is also a compassionate eyewitness . . . Her lines are animated but serious, and though they accelerate quickly, meaning and humor can be found in a single word."--The New Yorker "Her poems are open, resilient, invisibly twisted: part safety net, part trampoline."--The Village Voice Literary Supplement National Book Award finalist Heather McHugh presents a fast-paced, verbally dexterous, and brilliantly humorous book. Utilizing medical terminology and iconography to work through loss and detachment, McHugh's startling rhymes and rhythms--along with her sarcastic self-reflection and infectious laughter--serve as antidotes to the sufferings of the world. Being "upgraded to serious" from critical condition is a nod to the healing powers of poetry. "Not to Be Dwelled On" Self-interest cropped up even there, the day I hoisted three insteadof the ceremonially called-for twospadefuls of loamonto the coffin of my friend. Why shovel more than anybody else?What did I think I'd prove? More love(mud in her eye)? More will to work?(Her father what, a shirker?) Christ, what wouldn't anybody giveto get that gesture back? She cannot die again; and Ido nothing but re-live. Heather McHugh is the author of a dozen books of poetry and translation. She teaches at the University of Washington and Warren Wilson College and lives in Seattle.