Selected by C D Wright, this first full-length collection of work marks the emergence of a strong new voice in American poetry. From the children asked by the nuns 'to pray for Stalin's death / and then one day he died', to the wedding of the bookie who has 'chosen sweetness over risk, / a quiet girl who plays the piano quietly', Surowiecki weds what passes for ordinary life with irony and compassion in a spare language that allows both life's tragedy and comedy to shine through.