Velocity

Deceptively plainspoken, Nancy Krygowski arrives as one of the most high-spirited, uncompromising, and compelling voices we've heard in a long time. In poems that range across all subjects—from Vaseline to galaxies, new panties to doom—this poet's sensibility gives music to it all. Velocity is all the things its title suggests—fast and forceful—but you will return to these poems again and again for the surprising, careful things they have to say about this world and ourselves in it.

Poignant may be too clean a word for the fierce grace and honesty of Nancy Krygowski's Velocity. In elegies and meditations on the textures of loss, love and daily-hood, she writes poems of unpretentious risk and mystery. A line like: 'See I'm alive. Tell me I'm alive.' reflects her gift for balancing question and assertion; wonder and recognition in the same lyrical breath. This is a debut of uncommon maturity and depth.

Most impressive is the way in which Krygowski evokes life's complexity and hard lessons. . . . In 'Velocity', a poet facing harsh realities proves wonderfully articulate.

In a literary atmosphere where poetry book prizes proliferate and mediocrity dominates, Krygowsi's first volume . . . is a a delight—which does not mean it's easy, or even pleasurable, to read. Instead, this is superbly crafted tragedy that stops short of melodrama or self-pity.

Hauntingly gorgeous. Go order this book now. Here's a poet for whom craft and voice come together in powerful and stunning ways. . . . A book of urgency by a poet who is serious, searching, and hauntingly honest and loving about the world.

A beautiful, unpretentious collection of deeply felt and finely made poems. . . .They feel less made than felt, and have a spontaneous sincerity and singularity—not of style, but of point-of-view—that is amazingly rare in contemporary poetry.

Reading ['Velocity'] feels like holding a life-vest, fashioned from a dailyness whose depth and beauty we might not see without this poet's salvaging eye. Read them aloud; your mouth will thank you.