On Sadaf Qureshi

I find her work full of life—carefully observed, and expressed in language that is equally alive to gesture and nuance. Her poems surprise and satisfy, as when "used friends/look new in their unused clothes" or a wedding guest whispers a phrase the reader first takes as an epithet, then realizes it is meant as praise ("Patient Colony"). Her every line is packed, in a poetic style that condenses without confusing.

—Joyce Peseroff, author of three books of poetry: The Hardness Scale, A Dog in the Lifeboat, and Mortal Education. She is Visiting Professor and Poet in Residence at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.