Willow Room, Green Door

Book excerpt: The author of Good Heart presents “lyric poetry that sings, enchants, debunks and then reconstructs the truths and mysteries of our lives” (Jim Moore, author of Prognosis). Winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry Included in the Book Sense Picks Poetry Top Ten Written over the course of three decades, this extraordinary collection of new and selected poems presents a body of work from Deborah Keenan that is expressive variously of love and rage, vulnerability and authority, distraction and focus, and, perhaps above all, a sharply empathetic sense of observation. Keenan’s work balances holding on to what is dear with letting go of what she cannot change. With refreshing curiosity, these poems capture rich layers of life in trial and bliss alike, enabling us to see what a number of her contemporaries have recognized for some time: Deborah Keenan is one of our great poets. “My god, these are beautiful poems. I feel as if a great soul is speaking in these poems, after long thought and meditation and inward dialogue.” —Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love