Five Fundamental Forces

"The fundamental forces in our lives might include parents, siblings, husbands and wives, lovers, the rain and the sun. As Guns & Roses once sang every rose has its thorn. In this stunning new book, Pattie Palmer-Baker delves deep into these forces with a narrative and lyric force of her own. The poems here are generous, vulnerable, grown-up, and a joy to read. Palmer-Baker is a poet of witness, and this book is a balm for any prick of a thorn you may have suffered in your life."

-Matthew Dickman, author of Husbandry



"There's something elemental about this collection and its concerns woven through with the colors of mountains and motels. Here's a reckoning with the past told in sparkling imagery, always heartfelt yet never sentimental, 'My husband writes me love notes/on the shells of hardboiled eggs.' Pattie Palmer-Baker plays with space, reflecting the ways in which memory can be fractured and re-made on the page so as to create an alchemy which makes this collection one that remains in the mind long after the first reading."

-Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, author of Banjo