Daughter Eraser
"Amber West’s Daughter Eraser surprises relentlessly, moving gracefully from heartbreak to humor. Each poem is stitched with truth until the small, delicate, everyday expands. This poet delivers a playful theater of language, innuendo, and wit while teaching us how to assay the iron within irony. Indeed, the voice here takes no prisoners. But the heart of Daughter Eraser, like any work of comedy, is often rooted in a deeper truth where the personal and political converge. These up-tempo poems convey a sense of family and community that are believable and bold, and at times they plumb the metaphysical. We can be thankful this new voice springs out of need and mercy."
--Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Daughter Eraser was published in 2015 by award-winning independent publisher Finishing Line Press and can be ordered directly from me or via FLP's website. Read a few sample poems from Daughter Eraser here. Read Lindsey Lewis Smithson's review on The Next Best Book Blog.
"In her poems of sharp working-class witness, Amber West extends the territory mapped by Dorianne Laux, Jan Beatty, and Dorothy Allison. Plainspoken about the costs of family loyalty and romantic attachment, West’s poems offer fresh insight into the dynamic power of female ties. West is remarkably willing to risk tenderness as well as anger as she articulates her histories of grief and love."
--V. Penelope Pelizzon, author of Whose Flesh is Flame, Whose Bone is Time and Nostos