"Underneath ordinary stars and a late moon, ' extraordinary things happen to the people in Hilda Raz's poems. Love transforms, bodies transform, health transforms, and looked at freshly the things we thought we knew burst into strangeness. There is nothing like Raz's charged, smart, profound, moving poems, so rich in both intellect and heart, so open and wise, provoked by the question how can we live properly?' The University of Nebraska Press has done readers a great service by making these early, prize-winning poems available again, reminding us that Raz's astonishing power was present from the start of her career."-Floyd Skloot, author of The Wink of the Zenith and The Snow''s Music