Listen to Alicia Young read her poem, dinner with death, from her debut collection of poetry, Hell on Heels poems by Alicia Young. Now available from Lady-Lazarus Press!

The cover alone is luscious enough to catch my eye. As a loyal follower and fan of over a year now, I have to say you’re the first WordPress poet I would give a book deal were I still in the business. Your poems resonate both within the moment and into eterternity; especially noteworthy are *black and blue* for its raw honesty and poignant identification with/to any of us whom life has blessed with truly disfunctional relationships (far too many of us, and what salvific it is for someone to express shared woes so articulately!); *dinner with death* as demonstrated in your youtube link is one of the best dramatic readings I’ve heard, and I am a student of poetry through and through (I’ve heard thousands, read at least a million); and for its raw and tear-jerking tenderness, I could not but mention *i saw them slow dancing* . . . these poems alone, for this reader, are the cake. And yet so much more icing! The range of this collection from stark nihilism somehow cushioned by a palpable compassion to ironic humor to iconic nods toward confessionalism make this one of the best collections of poetry I’ve read in years. I laughed, I cried sad tears, I cried happy tears, and I shared in common tragedies with which I am all too familiar and yet whose details are foreign to my experiences. Not a dull moment in the whole manuscript. The biggest surprise here is that this collection is only the first in what promises to be a long and passionate career in poetry!
Kudos, sister poet.