A Curse on the Fairest Joys

A Curse on the Fairest Joys contains the gripping portrayal of two young girls, one molested by her priest, and one shot to death by her father. Martha K. Grant is versatile, her forms and styles various, her difficult subject matter interspersed with more lyrical, spiritual and philosophical poems which allow the traumatic to develop breadth and depth. These poems have heat and heart, and remind us that poetry, even in the face of the unspeakable, matters.

-Dorianne Laux, The Book of Men

Does memory belong to us or do we belong to memory? When we remember through poetry what others might rather forget, where do the poems leave us? Grant's collection confirms, page by page, that using poetry to confront the wounds of childhood and the silences wrought by violence can both heal the poet and astonish the reader. Here is the integrity of courage and craft; here is beauty and tragedy; here is the voice of eyes wide open and the tides of the heart rising, falling, rising.

- -Cyra S. Dumitru, What the Body Knows

In this deeply compelling poetry, a raw current electrifies every observation, the poet refusing to alter her searing gaze. In the final section, a series of psalms to the mystery of otherness are illuminated by wisdom and forgiveness replete in every line. However harrowing, these are all poems of triumph, clarity and human devotion.

-David St. John, The Auroras

Martha K. Grant is a courageous woman and this is a courageous book. She writes with a combination of deep feeling and admirable restraint. These well-crafted poems are also a triumph of honesty, of resilience, of the journey of a woman growing into her power.

-Ellen Bass, Like a Beggar