The Mark My Body Draws In Light by Madeleine Barnes

“This debut collection exudes the confidence and nuance—the craft—of a veteran poet. The quiet passion and intimate grace of these poems plants us firmly in the physical world as one remarkable image after another blossoms around us. Exquisite. Lush. Big poems about smallness—everything we don’t notice, but should. Their evocative furious dreaming flashes across the pages like the arced lightning of the heart.”

–Jim Daniels

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

“The Mark My Body Draws In Light often speaks directly to you. ‘You are speaking with your fingertips,’ ‘Your tired brain floats above you,’ ‘you have quarters for a song…’ The wonderful poems of Madeleine Barnes are lyrics, epistles, and prayers that, in addressing you, welcome you into her capacious heart. You become a lover, an eavesdropper, a friend, you become both the wounded and the one who wounds.  These poems display miraculous intimacy and compassion. ‘Throw your voice into this valley and it comes back a mountain,’ Barnes writes. ‘You’ve done nothing unforgivable, say it. Transform many times.’”

–Terrance Hayes