As an undergraduate at the University of Houston, I had the good fortune to take a couple of classes taught by Cynthia Macdonald, whose poems I had already grown to admire. Formally inventive, deeply intelligent, fiercely probing a wide range of subjects with what I guess I'd describe as a surgeon's passionate dispassion, her books are among the few that I come back to over and over. Some amazing, memorable lines. Delightful wit. Almost scary persistence of inquiry/examination of sometimes-diffi More...