Dirt Eaters

-A lush, fierce, primal work in which the broken world still rotates and orbits-not for us as we could project, not as a metaphor for redemption-but we get to ride on it anyway. Eliza Rotterman has a voice unlike any other and familiar too: she writes, in finely faceted jewels of language set in strong lines that cut as they connect, of a woman in her body / a woman on this planet ever-aware, observing everything, suffering, believing, tracking, clocking, ticking, as she must. The poet explodes her being for her poetry-nothing escapes-and she gives that explosion to the reader, in the form of exquisite, precise, deep beauty. I could not be more grateful that this gift was made and held faithfully to its purpose: to show us the chaos at the heart of desire, the raw stillness at the center of hope.--Brenda Shaughnessy, author of Our Andromeda and judge for the Snowbound Chapbook Award