Nostalgia for the Criminal Past

Book excerpt: Poetry. NOSTALGIA FOR THE CRIMINAL PAST by Kathleen Winter is the winner of the 2011 Antivenom Poetry Award published by Elixir Press. Contest judge, Deborah Bogen, had this to say about it: "NOSTALGIA FOR THE CRIMINAL PAST is Kathleen Winter's complicated, insightful, intriguing, sometimes sad and always artful song." And Cynthia Hogue said this: "By turns witty, gutsy, and passionate, Kathleen Winter's NOSTALGIA FOR THE CRIMINAL PAST pulls the reader into a capacious verbal terrain. 'Penumbra's a conundrum, / conundrum is penumbra. / An umbrella's humdrum,' one poem playfully opens. There is in these poems a subtle, delicate narrative of loss, grief, and survival, but as a poet trained in the law, Winter knows that any truth, like joy, is rare and precious. 'Joy is brief. / It turns away, extends its limbs, / feathered, reptilian,' one speaker opines. These poems are the nimble, profound products of experience alchemized into wisdom. NOSTALGIA FOR THE CRIMINAL PAST is a dazzling debut."