On Tanya Larkin

One of the things I admire about Tanya Larkin's work is how perfectly accessible it is, while at the same time lush with invention, music, obliquity, and all the other thrills we've come to recognize as visionary writing. The occasion in her poems is often an exact place which has the odd property of being self-generated, self-conscious, and shifting with tones, implication, and other satellite places. That her poems are sometimes settings that threaten to speak for themselves (each in their own vernacular, music, and abiding form) makes her a slyly metaphysical poet in the tradition of Bishop and O'Hara. Her poems are ferociously precise, which is to say physical, not only in terms of the landscapes, interiors, and quandaries they explore, but also in their idioms. The work makes for a beautiful strange voice, at once solitary and inclusive, quiet and loud.

—Peter Richards, author of two books of poetry: Oubliette and Nude Siren. He teaches at Tufts University.