About the Author

Marvin's first book, World's Tallest Disaster, was awarded the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize by Robert Pinksy (Sarabande 2001). In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Fence, Georgia Review, Slate, and The Kenyon Review. She is a creative writing professor at the College of Staten Island.

Reviews

Chosen by Robert Pinsky (who provides a foreword) for the press's first book prize, this taut, defiant, confessional collection implicates the reader in the speaker's misdeeds and misguidedness: "Reader, it was the funniest thing / after you left... / ...they called security." Marvin wields monotone vitriol ("Let me thank the lake that drowns you, the sun/ that makes your face old") and remote, albeit painful, embroilment ("Our lungs are blue/ from breathing that color.// Our faces wear the same/ expression. The sky is incapable of anything bluer./ Our hearts cannot be redder") like bludgeons. (Aug.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.