{"product_id":"9781881515357","title":"The Long Surprise","description":"\u003cp\u003eContest Judge X. J. Kennedy heralds Barbara Lau's The Long Surprise as \"full of unexpectedness . . . feeling and verve\" and \"a confident step onto the main stage of American poetry.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAdds Eleanor Wilner, \"Here is a poet of candor, vigor and daylight vision, who loves without illusion. . . whose ear is unerring, and whose startlingly fresh images push up like 'wild mint . . . through sidewalks.'\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePosing questions about the making of art (\"Is chaos \/ counterpoint to art, or instead, \/ its tuning fork?\"), marriage (\"How little is enough?\"), faith, family, and selfhood (\"Where does she begin \/ and I end?\"), Lau explores \"how life announces itself\" at our uneasy turn of the century.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer poems witness both the horrific the loss of a child, the greed of the impoverished, the motives behind child prostitution and common pleasures \"so dense they sedate you.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Texas Review Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47039221825776,"sku":"9781881515357","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781881515357_p0.jpg?v=1763604586","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781881515357","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}