A Thousand Vessels
'To punish me, Adam has taken over / the trees: Don't touch any this time.' This is what Eve tells us in Tania Runyan'sA Thousand Vessels,and reading it changed the way I thought about Eve. Runyan tells the strange and gripping stories of many women in the Bible from their own viewpoints. There is bitterness and anger in their workds, but also love and faith. Layered upon these accounts are the poet's astute reflections on the contemporary world. The two are so wonderfully imagined and entwined that I found myself turning the pages ofA Thousand Vesselsas compulsively as if it were fiction. --Jeanne Murray Walker, author ofNew Tracks, Night FallingIt only takes some fifty poems to fillA Thousand Vesselsto a wild and welcome overflowing. The water of the written word is turned into the wine of verse with Tania Runyan's miraculous touch. . . . To read her is to gain a taste of what it is to be fully human. --Paul J. Willis, author ofRosing from the DeadA Thousand Vesselsseems close to bursting with a thousand voices--or rather, one major overriding voice that names a thousand things throughout these ambitious, quick-eyed, heart-wrenching poems. . . . Throughout this memorable collection, Runyan follows exactly the daring actions of one of the early poems here--she shows herself supremely to be a poet who can 'touch, cut a path, and name.' --Brett Foster, author ofThe Garbage Eater