In Feast of the Seven Fishes, Linda Lamenza uses both nuance and precise language to invite us into her Italian American childhood and how that childhood informs and colors her experiences as a woman, mother and teacher. When it is dark and no one / cares where we are, what can we come to understand about ourselves, one another and the world? This compelling collection reads like snapshots of moments in time; however, many of them speak to complex and universal questions about family and memory, patterns, time and resilience. Every poem inspires curiosity about the shrapnel of childhood / that pressure cooker and how we navigate our lives when we are released.

• Joan Kwon Glass, author of Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms