Two Train Town by Theresa Burns

“Theresa Burns has such a rich mastery of tone, a diction so natural and conversational, an irony so intelligent, and a voice so firm, melodic, and worldly that we are almost lulled into forgetting that we are reading poems of piercing human grief and anguish. Almost, but not quite. The gaze here is steady, but it is unflinching and what it sees is profound and irreconcilable.”

–Vijay Seshadri, Pulitzer prize-winning author of 3 Sections

“If only all our negotiations with the world might have the wit and heart held by Theresa Burns’ poems! This brimming collection offers the prizes of a deeply considered and nuanced vision of a serious noticer. So when one poem’s speaker imagines how a hill will make for great sledding, she also has to imagine “all the colorful gloves left there / the next day.” We were looking for those! And for these poems, too.”

–Jessica Greenbaum, author of The Two Yvonnes

“The best collection of poems I’ve read in a long time. Theresa Burns’ unique takes on the little, and big, epiphanies of humans dealing with the dailiness of life in whatever capacity—parent, child, lover, worker, commuter, city or suburb dweller—are what I’d like to see published in the major venues for poetry today. Two Train Town is a brilliant book of poems by any measure.”

–Michael Lally, author of Swing Theory and The Village Sonnets