Following Fred Astaire

Book excerpt: Winner of the 1998 Washington Prize. The meticulous attention to detail and originality of her tone should be sufficient to herald Anderson's debut volume as a triumph. But there is an underlying sense of irony touched with wry wit that informs Anderson's disarming poems which are at once both funny and heartbreaking. Anderson's keen eye illuminates our socially-constructed ideas of gender and identity, the various mannerisms and dance steps we consider appropriate for women and men. --Marcus Cafagna. Following Fred Astaire pulls off what much contemporary poetry won't attempt. Difficult--yes, difficult--brainy, playful language. A sensibility that resists what is predictable. Beautifully musical lines. This is ambitious, original, and lovely work. --Lisa Coffman. Here are the infinitesimal private heroisms daily required of the unpartnered, the disappointments of romance, the eternal return of hope, in poems solaced by friendship and dreams, and by the illimitable grace of language. --Marilyn Nelson.