This debut collection wanders into the dark, enchanted territory of childhood fables. Poems are parables peopled with archetypes, birthing a world of spells and curses, of daughters betrayed by their own blood, of children vanishing in the woods, and, through it all, a singular heroine gradually emerging to triumph-her mind a butcher's block, her feet sprinting toward the twist.

With decadent fairy-tale rhetoric, wild child Stacy Gnall depicts a harrowing coming of age, luring us to indulge our anima.