PAMELA SUTTON taught writing at the University of Pennsylvania until 2008, and is now working on writing novels and a book of poems. She lives in Pennsylvania with her daughter Emily, and is a contributing editor to The American Poetry Review.


“A few lines can hardly suggest the richness and reach of these steel-cut, powerful poems: acutely personal while swimming in the shark-infested waters of history; fierceness matched by delicacy of feeling and perception—‘a fist of white flowers;’ the lines as taut as the laces of skates on which a difficult balance depends—‘so much pleasure lacing the skates / to the perfect tension;’ the work of an intellect as sophisticated as it is passionate—‘someday they’ll map the brain drowning / in the heart’s blood.’ The Pocket Gospel is good news for poetry.”—Eleanor Wilner