The House of Marriage: Poems

In The House of Marriage, Erin Hanusa searches ruthlessly and compassionately for deep and strange truth in a world we only believe we know. Whether set in a field in Tennessee, the lunar beauty of Egypt's White Desert, or a rain-soaked Plymouth on a midwestern highway, Hanusa's passionate, candid verse reconciles longing with understanding. The opening poems deal with objects close and familiar: animals, landscapes, and the body. Later poems trace an arc of familial betrayal and forgiveness, while others spiral through lyric, erotic mystery. Yet each of these transcendent poems is ultimately concerned with ""knowing the finite ways we possess / to love, / in learning them all."" With this remarkable debut, Hanusa affirms her place among America's most promising young poets. From The House of Marriage: ""No other proof or clue remains, // no photographs, no bed. // This place is as fearfulas they said. // I want to see them // move through it like water, // luscious and damaging, // toward the moment // that made me.