Riddle’s poems of loneliness, love-loss and love re-encountered might be anybody’s story. As the author notes, ‘It Gets Better’ was not a governing idea when I drafted these autobiographical lyrics, but I’m pleased to see that’s the trajectory, from childhood to the present. More than a few people in their middle years, of any sexual preference, would recognize the dolor and entrapments described in the first parts of this collection. That it gets better during the later (and lucky) developments of living-well, I don’t know how many readers will also recognize that as the arc of their lives; many, I hope.