Charles Hood shows us a strange and perplexing world that runs on sadness, microbrews, snack cakes, and inexplicable magic. Brimming with natural history and bright flashes of language, his poems focus on transformations. He takes us from Paleolithic caves to modern movie theaters, and along the way we fix time machines with Tom Hanks, enter a Rousseau painting, and collect diamonds from the moons of Neptune.

Charles Hood has a unique voice and style. Sentences are sometimes fragmented on edge of abstraction, then sharp, staccato, poetic and lyrical. It is clear from the opening passages that the writer is at the wheel and in total control. I did not know where I was being taken, but I was excited to be going on this ride. The story is absorbing on several levels. It's a tale told in the voices of two women, Chica and Bela. The former is the main narrative voice -- her text appearing at the top of each page, while Bela's appears at the bottom (usually only a sentence or two.) Bela is also credited...