Laura Kasischke's writing, in both her poems and her novels, is brilliantly original. She handles difficult subject matter with unblinking honesty, but doesn't ignore the power of ironic humor. There is a real person behind these poems, and I feel lucky to have finally found a poet/writer whose work I never tire of. You know that record you've played over and over and still haven't grown tired of, the songs that sound fresh every time like the first time? That's how this writer works for me.

This is a strange and beautiful book of poems. Laura Kasischke writes vividly, but the poems are also creepy and mysterious. I've had the honor of taking her class at Washtenaw Community College twice now, and I have to say she is one of the funniest, nicest ladies I've ever met. Where she finds these frightening images and subjects beats the heck out of me, but that just adds to the mystery, and makes me love these poems even more.

I had the distinct pleasure of being Laura's student in 1992, when the book was released. She's the type of person who really does everything to spur creative energy in a person.

Wild Brides will show you her creative energy, and the passion that a woman can have when writing anything. She's deep, she's dark, in her poetry you'll find a way of looking at a glass of water that you never thought of before.

I often use the opening line of this book as an example in creative and memoir writing classes that I teach of how an author can immediately capture the reader. This book keeps you breathlessly involved:the extraordinary language, its simplicity, the compelling character. A stunning novel, or novelized memoir?

A nearly perfect novel; a rare mixture of beautiful writing and logical, original story.It's clear Kasischke honed her skill as a poet; the language is just that concise. The opening paragraph is one of the best I've ever read. I was hooked from that moment on. Highly recommended.

i read this book about four years aGo -- picked it up in the NYU library on my lunch break, and it's stayed in my head ever since. tough, uncompromisinG, perfect. really want to read more from laura kasischke.

Laura Kasischke is reigning master of the half-said, and in Dance and Disappear, her fourth book of poetry, she delights once again with her vivid imagery and transient style, a heady mixture of the lyrical and macabre. The poems often change course so swiftly that even an astute reader can lose the thread - only to reemerge, two stanzas later, from out of the blue. "Day", for example, shifts at light speed from lost keys to a sparrows nest to a hat her husband wore in the jungle, the only link being the different days of the week on which she notices them. Until we get to Saturday, when:

the library's stone lions run
freely through the streets

And at this very height of madness, suddenly, somehow it all makes sense. You get the excited feeling that black magic is being performed in front of you, and read the poem several more times, compulsively, until you can make your peace with it.

Dance and Disappear has the feel of a transitional work, with themes from Kasischke's previous two books, Housekeeping in a Dream and Fire & Flower, reemerging along with a few hints of what we might expect in the future. Housekeeping's fascination with youth, death and sex surfaces again here in poems like "Spontaneous Human Combustion" and "Bike Ride with Older Boys". The poems have the trick of setting ordinary details at an unsettling angle, such as these lines from "Black Car":

Once, a black car pulled
into my driveway
and pulled back out.

That afternoon, the sun
was an eye on fire
in the sky.
But it had its headlights on.

Fire & Flower revolved mainly around motherhood, and there are several poems here in that vein as well - "My Son in the Cereal Isle", for example, where the narrator loses her child (briefly) in a grocery store. A few poems fuse the two themes, and step beyond them into the the realm of philosophy. "Back of the North Wind", for instance describes an imaginary place of perfect weather where people are nonetheless sad:

... Only
one drunken bus driver
has ever gone and come back.

Rather than seeming cryptic or evasive, the poem seems to be trying very hard to tell us something that could not be conveyed in any other words.

Kasischke's style is not particularly original - Baudelaire was describing carrion in the road a hundred years ago, and Robet Lowell was writing with autobiographical intimacy in the 1950's. What sets Kasischke apart is her imagination, the intuitive way she arranges her brief images like picture stills to give us a glimpse clarity so pure that it seems almost madness.

The title of the book, as Kasischke explains in "The Visibility of Spirits", comes from a Bisquick Box: "The skillet is ready when a few drops of water sprinkled on it dance and disappear". The same applies this collection of poems. Some refuse to ignite. Others are interesting but so cryptic you want to get the poet's number, call her up in the middle of the night and ask "So, Laura, what was THAT all about?" But a good many do actually dance and one or two may even disappear, in that act of black magic mentioned above. Just remember to heed Kasischke's own warning:

If one becomes accustomed
to sensational detail
she loses her taste for ordinary things.

Some might accuse Kasischke of being a poet's poet, but maybe the problem is that the world of poetry readers hasn't quite caught up with what she's doing yet, but the poets themselves have begun to catch on. The moments of brilliance and transcendence illuminate these pages, but are held together with an eerie music and a quick wit. Laura Kasischke is one of the most interesting poets to come along in decades, and this is her most interesting book.

By the middle of this book, I felt lost in the blizzard! So half-way through I was all set to put it down and forget about it. How much could I take of these musings of a 16-year-old? However, she is smarter (and more articulate) than your average 16-year-old. It was like an avalanche of too much introspection! Yet something made me stick with the book. And the ending was so gripping and surprising that it was well worth it! So, plow through it--you'll be glad you did!

Laura Kasischke has transformed a real-life crime, grisly and comical, into a meditation on cruelty. All of her characters have sharp edges; they crash against each other like ice floes. Kat's mother, the vanishing Eve, is so vicious to her daughter, it's a relief that she makes her odd exit. But there is no such thing as one abusive parent. There is always the attacker and the accomplice, the one who fails to defend the child. Which, in the end, is crueler? Kasischke's language is alarmingly vivid -- the bloody cupids are a particularly striking image -- and her pace has the drowsiness of someone sliding into unconsciousness in a snowbank. "White Bird" is a strange and remarkable novel, highly recommended.

I thought that White Bird in a Blizzard was a very good book, i enjoyed it so much from when you start when her mother just turned up missing every possible idea of what had happend to her mother, and when you reach the end the actual solution is the last thing you thought of.

I started this book over my morning coffee, and the first chapter was so compelling I had to tear myself away to head to work. It was therefore a bit of a letdown to return to it that evening, as much of the rest of it consists of rather tedious descriptions of the minutiae of a middle aged housewife's suburban life. Some of the metaphors and descriptions are lovely (I'd like to read some of the author's poetry; she certainly has a gift for language), but they do little to move the plot along. The flashbacks to Diana and Maureen's high school years were interesting, but somewhat confusing because the teens are never referred to by name ("one girl says to the other...") - I'm not even entirely sure which one finally snagged Nate Witt! Because I had such difficulty telling the girls apart, I didn't feel that I got to know either of them over the course of the story, and that was disappointing.

The slow pace picks up further on with the bizarre events that begin to disrupt Diana's middle aged life, such as the reappearance of Timmy the cat and the mysteriously altered story young Emma writes for school. Other, more subtle hints are dropped here and there, so you do eventually guess what is happening. Still, the final pages are quite powerful and well worth sticking with the novel through it's slower moments. A highly original story that's lingered in my thoughts ever since I closed the book.

I was totally blown away by this book! My local book club chose The Life Before Her Eyes for our monthly selection, and I can't wait to discuss it with everyone. The writing was pure poetry, and the story captivated me from the very beginning. And the ending was one that I did not expect.

The Life Before Her Eyes begins with two best friends, Diana and Maureen, as they are primping in the girls' restroom at their high school. Suddenly, one of their classmates comes in and points a loaded gun straight at them. "Which one of you should I kill?" he asks....

At that point, the story takes off around 25 years into the future. Diana is a happily married artist and mother of 8-year-old Emma. She is the typical minivan-driving soccer mom. Everything is going well, but then there begins these subtle changes -- changes almost of a ghostly nature that impact Diana's life in terrifying ways. And interspersed between the paragraphs of Diana's future are excerpts from Diana's past with her friend, Maureen, before the shooting.

I was completely mesmerized with this book. I felt that something was building up, some sort of surprise or twist to the story, but I could quite figure out what it would be. And by novel's end, I was so out of breath with the anticipation! Laura Kasischke has written an amazing novel. She has a great gift of storytelling that is unshakeable. I loved every minute and every word, and I look forward to reading more by this author.

I read this book after I read the review in the New York times. I won't get into the plot here as others already have. I do not read poetry, so I was surprised to enjoy this book so much. It has been my experience that most poets do not write prose well, especially novels. Ms. Kasischke is an exception to that rule. I did not like the main character of Diana at all. But I don't think that Ms. Kasischke wants you to sympathize with Diana; that's part of what makes this book so good. Diana is a totally unsympathetic, unlikeable character, but you can't wait to see what happens. The first chapter would stand alone as a great short story. Read it and you will be hooked. I've recommended this book to several people already and I recommend it to you. Read this book. Tell other people about it. You will agree with me that Laura Kasischke is an incredibly talented writer.

I was really impressed by "What It Wasn't," the poetry collection by Laura Kasischke. The author has a vivid literary voice. Her poems are often nightmarish, sensual, and/or surreal; the book is full of bizarre, unsettling imagery. Her preoccupation with death is reminiscent of the work of Poe.

Here are some samples of her vision. "The moon tonight is red as something / too sweet and full of female screams to eat" (from "Andy's Lanes & Lounge"). "How skinny the Cornish hen / appears in the oven. / A plucked, baked, feminine / fist" (from "Woman in a Girdle"). In another poem she describes the moon as "a blind blue infant face" ("My Heart"). Also remarkable is the title poem, which recalls a paranormal encounter with a fantastic bird. Although I didn't always find the poems totally coherent, Kasischke's voice is consistently compelling, and this book is definitely worth reading.