Broom Broom

Come dream, snow,

Bear in the cavern,

Rat in the cistern.

Every little chit in its hole.

Make us kid-glove clean again,

Intestines fresh from the fast.

Lay out your skin to swaddle our feet,

Snow madonnas maquillaged in ash.

Nothing slips by Brecken Hancock's deft ear as she seductively plumbs the depths of the evolution of bathing, doppelgängers, the Kraken, and the minutiae of family with all its tragic misgivings. The poems in Broom Broom pervert the rational, safe parts of the world to extoll and absorb the sweep of human history.

'The eccentric music of Hancock's title points to the witchy magic of the poems within. Here are "snow madonnas maquillaged in ash," a kitchen "achoke with flocks of smoke" and "an unreachable beach crowned / with wigwams of whale ribs" – not to mention a history of the bathtub that will haunt you for life. Students of poetic craft will find much to admire here, from rhymed couplets, sonnets and villanelles to free verse, haikus and lyric prose, but the real gift of this nervy debut is the mythic voice of its speaker – dauntless, erudite and defiantly feminist – in the face of trauma and grief: "I douche in tsunami; I'm radiant. It's the end of man and I can do whatever I want." It's thrilling to watch how she does it.'

– Suzanne Buffam, author of The Irrationalist