I would like to thank the following people who have helped me to become a poet. First and foremost David Tibet, who has encouraged me to write this book and pull it together. My husband who has unfailing faith in me and sleeps on in peace whenever I turn the light on in the middle of the night in order to write down some lines. My first teacher Radliff Squires, now deceased these many years, is a suprb poet and I am still deep in debt to him. After that I became the poetry teacher and did the occasional workshop now and then to keep my hand in. It's hard to list all those poets I have come across over the years - I've appreciated every moment that I have shared with poets such as Tess Gallagher and Terry Blackhawk, who showed me new pathways to word craft. I deeply appreciate the chance to work with Marie Ponsot, a poet I've admired for years, at an Atlantic Center for the Arts fellowship in 2007. I would also like to thank Patricia Fargnoli, Poet Laureate of New Hampshire, for reading my book manuscript through several times. And thanks to all of you who have sat with a cup of coffee in the kitchen, just quietly listening to me read my poems. Without you, a poem would never make it to birth.

This is one of 200 numbered copies hand-set in Bembo type, printed on Accent Fresco paper by Alan Anderson for David Tibet and Durtro Press.