Ruthann Robson: Well known by readers of gay and lesbian fiction for her award-winning short story collections and novels; notorious in the legal profession as the nation’s “foremost authority on lesbians and law” (Village Voice), a professor at the City University of New York, a young mother raising a son, Ruthann Robson’s breadth of experience is unique among American poets. With seamless use of poetic craft and ironic wit, Robson tackles subjects as political as they are bizarre: the young woman chained to a radiator by her mother to keep her safe from harm; the teenager who gets herself knocked up because it’s less dangerous to be an unwed mother than a lesbian. Affecting, terrifying, but always bathed in a clear hard light, these poems introduce a stunning intelligence and a bold new voice in American poetry.