Carolyn Miller’s writing is both extraordinarily risky and extraordinarily lucid. Her lines dip like dancers and then make such sharp turns they can leave the reader gasping at their freshness and nerve. She is a totally original poet, unafraid of angels and very aware of the dark. You won’t be able to put this book down. -Christopher Howell Wild and raucous, graceful and tender, Carolyn Miller’s poems reveal a carnival of delights full of music, animals, soldiers, spirits, specters, and dazzling stage effects. Miller rides these poems, as one poem asserts, as the bareback artist who ‘invited the lion into her care. His paw brushes satin.’ -Nance Van Winckel

Carolyn Reynolds Miller was born in Walla Walla, Washington, and attended American University in Washington, D.C., before moving to Salem, Oregon, where for many years she taught mathematics. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Colorado Review, Cutbank, Ironwood, The Malahat Review, and Poetry Northwest, by which she was awarded the Helen Bullis Prize. She now spends much of her time at the Oregon Coast, writing.