These are poems which, with precision and chilling beauty, subtly reveal the abyss below the surface of daily gestures, the motions of "anarchic Eros" subverting domestic routine, the danger waiting just beyond the periphery of vision. And they are poems which, in acknowledging precarity, danger, the violent underside of human exchanges, celebrate the diverse acts of creation, the intelligence of love, the order we make in full sight of the void.
Ann Townsend writes the romance of 'everyday' life in Dime Store Erotics but the exquisite act of her affection makes every minute a precipice, every detail an opening door - not into the dime store but out into the spinning original dimensions of her lyric consciousness. She is an intoxicating poet.
-Carol Muske
"Dime Store Erotics is an auspicious and welcome first collection. I can find an easy dozen poems that make me feel the excitement of not just being alive but wanting its moments all over again. For its edgy poise, for its careful unions of flesh and dream, Ann Townsend's narratives of a woman's life in Dime Store Erotics are going to be hard to beat."
—Dave Smith
"Ann Townsend's first book, Dime Store Erotics, marks the arrival of a poised and powerful young poet on the American literary scene. These are poems which, with precision and chilling beauty, subtly reveal the abyss below the surface of daily gestures, the motions of "anarchic Eros" subverting domestic routine, the danger waiting just beyond the periphery of vision. And they are poems which, in acknowledging precarity, danger, the violent underside of human exchanges, celebrate the diverse acts of creation, the intelligence of love, the order we make in full sight of the void."
—Marilyn Hacker
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