1. In this new collection Ms. Donato shows off her virtuoso skills as a poet, contorting into endless shapes like a yoga master hell-bent on bringing you enlightenment or breaking you in half. Beware all ye who enter here.
2. This feels like a work of feminism and therefore I offer up this.
3. The amalgamation of personal detail here reminds me of Ms. Emin’s Bed.
4. There is a riotous energy to these poems. They won’t keep still. They won’t be relegated to the back row.
5. Body as illness; Body as toxic; Body as decay; as ecstasy; as a vessel; as a slip hastily cast on the floor.
6. Passionate Dialogue
7. Given this books variety of form I’d pair it with a buffet of earthy granola fare, liver and kidney pie, and cantaloupe.
8. The poems are spaced across the page like the wreckage of a farewell party; like broken glass.
9. Gerard Richter’s Twins
10. These are ultimately songs of redemption and for all of their feints and gesticulations towards disembodiment, I suspect that they are deeply personal.
11. Tree of Life
12. Check out Ms. Donato’s website

12.5 The Second Body is out in Spring of 2016 from Poor Claudia. But don’t wait to get acquainted with the poems – here are three to whet your appetite.