The Terrible Wife
"Terry Ann Thaxton's new poems are uncompromisingly tough self-reckonings, unsentimental but always vulnerable examinations of how the past invariably haunts us. They are about what Richard Ellman  labels the "controlled seething" from which enduring art must derive. They are also marvelously inventive in their ability to let the memories  of Eros morph into occasions for exorcism, and to allow straightforward  narrative to suddenly swerve toward the surreal. In other words, these the durable and always impassioned poems of a grown woman -- and the sort  of poetry that American verse very much needs these days." --David Wojahn "Tangled  in lush Florida landscapes and laced with birdsong, Terry Ann Thaxton's  rich new book is as  toughly accepting as her own small town protagonist girls, who are unforgettably beaten, duped and finally opened into a womanhood that makes them too smart, too sad, and too dangerous for any one man or lifetime." --Terri Witek "Terry  Ann Thaxton's new poems are filled with birds and silence ... she is open  with herself, even about the hard things ... She shows us how it went, from young fantasy to brutality to more fantasy to betrayal (sometimes her own) followed by near-despair. Finally, she settles into a quiet joy  which she proceeds to undermine because she is wise enough to know that  everything, even that, changes ... Thaxton says that what we think about all this is up to us, but we know what's true.  We hold the tenderness to our chests and take it home." --Lola Haskins