The poems in Kristi Maxwell's Wide Ass of Night, prod and probe the ways encounters make and change us, and embrace the possibility of pleasure amidst the realities of diminishment and damage. Often funny, sometimes mournful, Maxwell's poems give credence to the claim that "poetry is a language that squirms," valuing proliferation over reduction and embracing slipperiness instead of trying to pin down the world. Maxwell's newest and most audacious collection yet takes in as much of the human experience as possible into a tight embrace that is equal parts loving and menacing.