On a more personal and intimate level, poet Karin Kiwus charts the ordinary disillusionments of life, the always crumbling bridge between innocence an(...)

Original Toronto Star caption: On a more personal and intimate level; poet Karin Kiwus charts the ordinary disillusionments of life; the always crumbling bridge between innocence and experience. Beginning with concrete situations and then leaping into free-floating metaphor; her poems are often laconic; always startling; and frequently every funny. Am ersten Lich (Dawning Light); for instance; depicts the end of a love along with a minute description of the sagging gluteal flesh of what the reader is likely to take as a woman getting out of bed in the morning. Kiwus; however; has scandalized a good many males by pointing out that the poem is written from the point of view of a woman observing the backside of a man. I'd like to write poems you can walk through like a painting; she says; and she does - only the landscapes are subtlety mined.