"Katie Ford's is a finely-wrought lyrical beauty, a poetry of detail and care, but she has set it within an epic arc." "Poetry""""""I lie still, play dead, am delivered decree: ""our daughter weighs seven hundred dimes, ""paperclips, teaspoons of sugar, ""this child of grams""for which the good nurse""laid out her studies""as a coin purse""into which our tiny wealth clinked, ""our daughter spilling almost""to the floor.""" from "Of a Child Early Born"In Katie Ford's third collection, she sets her music into lyrics wrung from the world's dangers. "Blood Lyrics" is a mother's song, one seared with the knowledge that her country wages long, aching wars in which not all lives are equal. There is beauty imparted, too, but it arrives at a cost: "Don't say it's the beautiful / I praise," Ford writes. "I praise the human, / gutted and rising.""
