I’m often refreshed by poets who can handle humor effortlessly, especially when they know how to balance their tonal range through sequencing, as Beth Anne does: at times the poems are subdued and deadpan in their humor, at times situational where much hinges on a fabulous last line, sort of like a punch line, but better. I particularly liked “In this way, the business of pleasure went on in the dark” and “There I was, smiling like a slut, and I hadn’t even granted an interview.” Those were lines from two of my favorite poems; I also loved the Whitman ones. Beth Anne was a fellow “younger poet” back at Bucknell in 2000, and it was nice to see some poems from those workshops, like the poems about a certain bicycle named Mildred.