Remembering Fireflies

In Remembering Fireflies, Pamela Laskin loosens the knot of familial relationships enough for us to lean in close to the fault lines inherent with all sorts of love and longing. Without sentimentality, in clear and precise language, Laskin traces and pierces the desire and disappointment of being a daughter, of becoming a mother. These poems offer surprising jolts when experience does not meet expectation, when pessimism hovers over hope or curves into cynicism. A world emerges in which a new mother creeps close to the edge during a sleepless night as her "son continues to cry," and she speaks to Joel Stienberg, admitting "I could have been you."

Linda Susan Jackson, author of What Yellow Sounds Like As these poems turn phrase they take unexpected turns on our imaginations, each notion we hold made and then unmade in an instant. Truly a delightful read - a collection to keep returning to.

Catherine McKinley, author of The Book of Sarahs