Now back in print with a new cover design Winner of the inaugural Beatrice Hawley Award in 1986"Linnea Johnson's poems are strong and ardent and credible, full of wisdom and indignation. They tell stories we need to hear, sung with the pounding verve of the blood behind them."--Adrienne Rich "Readers of Linnea Johnson's first published collection of poems will know her vision. No one is spared once eye touches page: every passion and purge known to womankind is brought alive and bears weight; abandonment at birth, the cold iron of the orphan's crib, seduction and betrayal by family, pregnancy from rape, death from motel abortion, miscarriage by brutality, beatings, the sanctions of a law that ties woman to brutal husbands. . . . These poems praise human love and the courage to pursue it. Linnea Johnson is a superb, brave poet. Her books will be read for generations."--Hilda Raz