Alicia Young's poetry is inspired by her life experiences, which, like the lives of most of us, have been a mixed bag of both horrors and delights. The daughter of a dead drunk father and a hell-cat Baptist mother, she has worn many masks including mother, ex-wife, lover, former mortician, middling pianist and above average tap dancer. She has the tongue of a harpy, the heart of a benevolent queen, the gall of a mad king, and is rumored to be a wee bit of a tramp who learned her fi rst lessons in pain, love and joy in the highly conservative American south. Her writing celebrates human...