"This full arc of life—bigger than imagination in a raging fire—is set on paper by a poet obsessed with beauty, hooves, and the passion of flight....In Lifshin’s language, spare yet metaphorically profound, we enter into that animal grace that only a true poet can convey, as we race on from poem to poem, joining Secretariat in triumph—'not for a win but a coronation.'” --Laura Chester AS THE DAYS GET LONGER the horse dreams of flying in the air like a gust of wind on an abandoned Christmas tree, red exploding like a spurt of light, flaming wildly like those boughs of northern lights out of darkness

always women in the dark on porches talking as if in blackness their secrets would be safe --from "Champlain, Branbury, the lakes at night" Lyn Lifshin can make something memorable out of the most familiar words and scenes--something memorable, something fresh and entirely her own. Contents of this collection include Slippery Blisses, A Love of Blueness, Written on the Body of Night, Things Behind the SunDarkness in the Light.

A collection which contains direct, sparse, largely autobiographical poems by Lifshin, drawn from childhood, marriage, unsparing love affairs, from the pain of losing a mother, and from the struggle for self-sufficiency after the wreckage of bad relationships.

"Thoroughbred racing has never gotten over Ruffian. Lyn Lifshin came out of nowhere to become a Ruffian fan, a zealot for everything Ruffian stood for and all that she touched. Her poems will carry you away to a field of Kentucky foals, to the racetrack where each new horse could be the one, to the bone-numbing feeling of a runaway winner and to the despair of watching brilliance flame out. Ruffian would have liked Lifshin." --Sean Clancy, author of Saratoga Days "Eros and Equus perfectly combine in these sleek, sensual poems. From brilliant filly to tragic fatality, Lifshin keeps pace with this dark darling of the track, everybody's favorite-Ruffian." --Laura Chester "These poems do the memory and legacy of Ruffian The Beauty justice at last. Poetry is the only medium to evoke the life and tragic death of this extraordinary horse, and Lyn Lifshin proves more than up to the task. They mirror the evolution of Ruffian's athletic prowess and striking black beauty with deft attentiveness and poignant detail. They do not merely honor the memory of Ruffian, but invoke the dynamic ghost of her radiant presence . . ." --Joe La Rosa

Charismatic little-magazine legend and muse, longtime keeper of the flame of the poem, Lifshin writes with energy, fire and truth of the common world of experience to which our passional lives commit us. Bearing signs of struggle, pain and loss, her work can turn in a heart beat and joy is never refused.