On Sarah Maclay

Ms. Maclay has a superb lyric gift, a remarkable imagistic clarity, and a constant sense of invention. Her recent prose poems—a departure for her—strike me as some of the most gracious and compelling of the genre. She is melding the concerns of her more fiercely lyric pieces with a more elongated music phrasing, and the result is miraculous.

Sarah Maclay is without question an astonishingly gifted young poet; I believe she has a truly remarkable career ahead of her. Her poems have the fierce lyric clarity I've described above and a deep, rich impassionment that are both breathtaking. I am often stunned at the power, beauty, and profound originality of her work. Already well-published, it is only a matter of time before Ms. Maclay has a significant book publication.

—David St. John, author of eight collections of poetry, most recently Prism. He is editor-at-large of The Antioch Review and Professor of English at the University of Southern California.