Mouthbrooders

Amy Nawrocki's new collection Mouthbrooders is precise and carefully contained. Each poem is a vessel crafted to express one perfect thing: how saliva works on a burn; the tender terror of bringing a word or a child into life; the pleasure of "rigatoni...heavy/ with artichokes, cream sauce,/peppercorns slowly braised/and crushed under a fork; the desire to "sample" one's own flesh; a conversation with a peregrine in which the persona asks, "Tell me about the wind, the kind/that quiets fear and lengthens your cries/ into inaudible whispers." Mouthbrooders is a collection to savor. -Laurel S. Peterson, Norwalk Community College, Poet Laureate, Norwalk, CT 2016 - 2019 - - -?Laurel S. Peterson, Norwalk Community College, Poet Laureate, Norwalk, CT 2016 - 2019
With language that freshens and lends intrigue to the familiar, Amy Nawrocki makes a sacrament of life's ordinary rituals from gardening to shoveling snow to waiting at the DMV.Whether it's a walk in the woods, a meal, or the travails of illness, readers are in the moment with her. I delight in worlds with "lollipops that suck away loneliness," where a woman is "foraging for her lover's shoulder," and there's a "taxidermy of goodbyes."I want to linger and read again. -David K. Leff, author of The Breach and Terranexus - - -David K. Leff, author of The Breach and Terranexus