In For My Father Falling Asleep at St. Mary's Hospital, award-winning poet Dennis Sampson writes of the myriad of emotions he experiences while coping with his father's slow death: loneliness, vulnerability, anger, futility -- all explored in unflinching detail. Walking a fine line between an awareness of evil and the promise of the dawn, the poems reflect the idea that real happiness sometimes comes from enduring unhappiness with fortitude. For those who are alone and coping with loss or tragedy, Sampson provides an empathetic voice.

The author of Good Heart presents “lyric poetry that sings, enchants, debunks and then reconstructs the truths and mysteries of our lives” (Jim Moore, author of Prognosis). Winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry Included in the Book Sense Picks Poetry Top Ten Written over the course of three decades, this extraordinary collection of new and selected poems presents a body of work from Deborah Keenan that is expressive variously of love and rage, vulnerability and authority, distraction and focus, and, perhaps above all, a sharply empathetic sense of observation. Keenan’s work balances holding on to what is dear with letting go of what she cannot change. With refreshing curiosity, these poems capture rich layers of life in trial and bliss alike, enabling us to see what a number of her contemporaries have recognized for some time: Deborah Keenan is one of our great poets. “My god, these are beautiful poems. I feel as if a great soul is speaking in these poems, after long thought and meditation and inward dialogue.” —Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love

One of America's major contemporary poets, Pattiann Rogers is known for her penetrating perception, striking imagery, and intricate sense of the often elusive connections between humankind and their world. For "Firekeeper," Rogers has assembled her best work, deleting some poems from the original edition and adding others. Here are such resonant older poems as "Suppose Your Father Was a Redbird" and "Rolling Naked in the Morning Dew," along with such masterful new poems as "The Dream of the Marsh Wren: Reciprocal Creation," "Born of a Rib," and "Generations."

I came to in the middle of it, like waking inside a horror movie, silent scream and all. Eyes wide open. I was standing at an open window, staring at the dizzying curve of Riverside Drive, five floors below. I’d stopped, somehow, poised, about to jump. Growing up the good girl in an Irish American family full of drinkers and terrible sleepers, Kathleen Frazier was twelve when her seemingly innocent sleepwalking turned dangerous. Over the next few years, she was a popular A+ student by day, the star of her high school musical. At night, she both longed for and dreaded sleep. Frazier moved to Manhattan in the 1980s, hoping for a life in the theater but getting a run of sleepwalking performances instead. Efforts to abate her malady with drinking failed miserably. She became promiscuous, looking for nighttime companionship. Could a bed partner save her from flinging herself down a flight of stairs or out an open window? Exhaustion stalked her, and rest and love were seemingly out of reach. This is the journey Frazier illuminates in her intimate memoir. While highlighting her quest to beat her sleep terrors and insomnia, this is ultimately a story of health, hope, and redemption.

In these edgy, elegant poems, Eireann Lorsung seeks balance in her world between the need for permanence and the heady seductiveness of the moment. Her intuitive knowledge of poetic form (line breaks, enjambment, repetition, punctuation) and her strong poetic voice channel some of the genre's greats while remaining distinctive. From the prayer-like musicality of "All Through the Night," to the visually dynamic "Oceanside," to the theatrical "Bird Woman, Duck Hunting," these poems exhibit a visceral creativity that establishes the author as a major new voice in the field.

Coding and decoding are the themes of Anne-Marie Oomen's collection of poems, which together tell the story of a woman named Bead and her search for a safe harbor. The maritime International Code of Signals becomes a symbolic guide to Bead's journey, lending weightier meaning to boating phrases such as "You should proceed with caution" and "I am continuing to search." The beautiful terrain near Lake Michigan forms a powerful backdrop to the exploration of the life of a woman and her Native American lover, whose poverty and desperation are in stark contrast to the wealthy resort community around them. As an essayist and playwright, Oomen is known for her ability to convey the inner landscape of a woman's mind; this is her first book of poetry.

The water was as smooth as glass, and with a hint of diesel oil on the surface I could see all the colours of the rainbow ... we were not there just to catch fish but to dream. This is the story of my childhood in Ballina in the 1950s. Packed with adventure on the bustling Richmond River; filled with fascination for my father’s medical practice, despite its intrusion into our family life; and enriched by his enquiring, scholarly mind, these years offered a way of life that I loved, and that exists no longer. Book Review: Roger KA Allen has written a beautiful and fascinating memoir about his family and childhood growing up in Australia in the 1950s. The son of a “unique” country doctor and a nurse, Allen touchingly chronicles his life in Australia from the time that his mother was pregnant with him to his ninth birthday. He describes how his father’s “restlessness drove us into the wilderness like the Israelites in search of that promise of a land of milk and honey,” which his family found in Ballina, New South Wales, where his father bought a local doctor’s practice. The author’s observations and accounts are very telling of the place and time that he grew up, from the descriptions surrounding his father’s medical practice to the medical profession in general, and the practice of frontal lobotomy or the “horrors of shock therapy,” to the introduction of television which had most Australians more educated about American culture and politics than their own. Allen also brings to light the similarities between the way the Australians and Americans treated the real “first settlers” to both those countries, recounting the history of racism and atrocities against the Aboriginal people, and the imaginary games of “Explorers versus Aboriginals” and “Cowboys and Indians.” Throughout the book, Allen places the events of his childhood Australia in context with world events, effectively comparing and contrasting just how similar and different his own experiences and “struggles” were compared to those of people in other countries. Allen’s characters are human and real, filled with strengths and flaws, with all their prejudices, love, and hate, from his father who is so devoted to his profession to his mother’s relentless loyalty to her family, to the residents of the town and the people he meets on his travels. Allen’s story captures the wide range of boyhood emotions. We see joys of his childhood expressed in humorous accounts, like his father battling with crabs that are doing their best to avoid the “final trip on the tumbrels to the final hell of the execution pot.” He evokes a young boy’s wonder in the description of the aftermath of a flood which lends itself to a great exploration of the insects, shrimp, and frogs that have surfaced. The author evinces the humor of the “sex education” offered by the “literary delights” at the local barber and the heartbreak of childhood lessons when he describes a touring marionette company’s performance about a little Aboriginal boy who befriends a baby wombat. “But in the end the boy had to leave them all to return to the world of humans as if this mortal life always has to have a sad ending.” Ballina Boy is a childhood account brought to life in a rich tapestry of anecdotes, stories, culture, and history lessons—a highly recommended read. Maya Fleischmann