My Work Among the Faithful

I suppose Lisa Beskin is a sort of present-day American Gothic skeptic, more than distantly related to Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her wit is bright and dark. The people in her poems may suffer, but an unseen force is protecting them; just when the poems turn mordant, something inexplicably humane and tender appears. There is odd comfort in these poems, odd beauty. -- Gillian Conoley Lisa Beskin possesses the courage of distinctions, e.g. the fineness of the air from the shimmer of God's robe. De Sade, Dr. Caligari, Lazarus's sister, and Rod Serling--all these, and more, are met here. If the devil is in the details, then these poems are rich in wondrous deviltry. -- Nance Van Winckel One's thresholds can be surprising subjects in and of themselves. Can I take this almost arch, almost otherworldly wit and its attendant acumen--well, yes, on account of that there's sprit and heart almost naked inside them. Is this poetry acatalectic and heartbreakingly beautiful, a metaphorical resolution? I think so. The poems in this book have caused me to write these sentences. And better than that, I love these poems for their adventurous, elegant dedication to poetry's insistences. -- Dara Wier

The poems in this first collection by Lisa Beskin explore the elastic, chancy nature of the self, the whims and slippages of narrative, and the mysteries of language - flawed, glorious, limited, illimitable. With great wit, humor, and naked grace, the poems compile a fresh lexicon of human emotion and appetite.