Good Mother Lizard
(By Lisa Alletson)
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| Author | Lisa Alletson |
JOSE HERNANDEZ DIAZ, NEA Fellow and author of 'The Fire Eater':
"In Good Mother Lizard, we encounter visceral poems written with a sharp precision and urgent transparency. Through these introspective yet accessible poems we empathize with the speaker’s sense of isolation, yet a fierce integrity of conscience also shines through. “I close my eyes. / Fall / as a / wet word / into the Namib desert,” writes Alletson in her dazzling debut collection. These are candid, vital poems which blaze through our eyes into our conscience, penetrating the landscape of our souls.
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AMY BARNES, author of 'Mother Figures' and 'Ambrotypes':
"Lisa Alletson writes as an archaeologist guide in twenty-seven stunning, often-surreal poems that feature unfolding life layers. Her mother tongue (and mother lizard) is authentic and honest throughout. In this award-winning debut collection, Alletson creates an unflinching, sensory field guide slash diary. Each poem entry is infused with her memorable imagination: a girl with quilted hands, cold planets in a throat, a dress and girl that are shadows, a rogue cotton sycophant, fog beetle performing a handstand, blue moth night brushed with sleeping pills, thrum and ashes.
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TINA MOZELLE BRAZIEL, Philip Levine prize-winner for 'Known by Salt':
"Good Mother Lizard doesn't back down from the challenges of motherhood, mental health issues, or the death of a sister and father. Instead, Lisa Alletson faces them head-on. Even when they "burn open her eyes" revealing "freckles are holes" and DNA is worn "like a casualty" she still savors how an apricot's stone is "tangled like jazz." For Lisa, finding beauty, no matter how devastating, is an act of defiant survival.”
