Praise for Facing the Facts

"Laurie Blauner’s fourth collection includes fifty-seven poems, ranging from largely tranquil domestic scenes to the stark contrast of the final section, in which she explores the characters and situations of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley’s horror tale seems eerily relevant to the marvels and terrors of twenty-first-century genetic science with its talk of stem cell organ production and human cloning.

-- Madeline DeFrees, author of Blue Dusk

"Tender and quietly assertive, Facing the Facts starts 'in the small room of the heart' and makes that space an arena of connection and mystery that imposes itself unforgettably on the reader's consciousness.

-- Roger Lathbury, Orchises Press

Praise for Laurie Blauner

"I am told, in a way I want to be told, things I recognize I my own heart already. I am enthusiastic about these poems."

-- Laura Jensen, author of Bad Boats

"A highly-charged, fast-paced poetry that rides on its images. A highly visual, elliptical poetics can be seen at work."

-- Alexandra van de Kamp, editor, Terra Incognita

Sample poem from Facing the Facts

Where the Stars Disintegrate,

where a gull swallows a silent piece of sky or
a red kite conversing with a cloud fades away

to nothing was formerly called heaven. Now it is
named light, morning or dark, night or any of the

variations like the black and white words shrinking
on the optometrist’s chart that become whole and

incomprehensible under the right glass. How I wanted
to see the twists and turns in the celestial necklace

that people have viewed for centuries. To be able
to watch Orion take aim at me from the throat

of the universe. Sand heated to the correct thickness
allows me to see the sign screaming its warning,

the blond woman painted near the nose of a distant plane,
the subtitles of foreign movies where a large moon makes

sentences disappear. This morning I can name
the constellations like friends whose faults become apparent

as they are walking out your door and
as they say goodbye they are calling you someone else.