Sarabande Books, 2001

“The moon in all its guises oversees Marvin's slicing poems of consuming passion and the hangover that follows. A keen new poetic voice blessed by Robert Pinsky in a praiseful foreword, she fashions elegant poems that pull quietly but fiercely in opposite emotional directions as the narrator, skeptical of desire, ponders men—large, mute beings with unfathomable eyes and trustworthy hands—and animates hungry, insomniac, and flinty women ("We talk / in pants, but live in bodies termed feminine"), by turns enthralled and disgusted. Wreathed in smoke and stoked with whiskey, Marvin's poetic personae are lunar in their brightness and brooding, gazing out moodily on landscapes steeped in centuries' worth of poets' tropes and heartaches. The body is at odds with itself and with the mind, and men and women come together only to pull apart. Marvin snaps crisp metaphors onto the page like winning hands in poker, taking no comfort in victory, however, counting instead on panache, carefully wrapped anger, and precise expression to carry her through.”

—Donna Seaman
in Booklist, 2001/08/01

ISBN: 1-889330-60-4 (cloth) / 1-889330-61-2 (paper)
Price: $20.95 (cloth) / $12.95 (paper)
Pages: 72
Trim: 6 x 9
Publication date: 07/2001