Tangle

Poetry. TANGLE is made of poems that ache and grieve, desire and remember, the space between words and the hand. They capture the body's grace and the tumor backlit on a screen. They are waking and dreams, a jagged tear across our sleep. They are winter and a woman's last menses. They are a daughter's final summer at home, her mouth already remembering the tomato's ripeness. Pauletta Hansel's poems are also mystery we can taste here and now. Smoke from a father's cigarette. Packed-dirt yards. Oranges and cloves. Who we are, Hansel tell us, 'is hatched from who we were / this film of self now covering / who we will be.' These are poems to mend us.--Karen Salyer McElmurry, author of Surrendered Child and Motel of the Stars