Receipt

Praise for Receipt: "Our consumer culture isn't pretty, as Anderson reminds us, yet her writing is so deft and insightful that the work is resonant and witty."--Washington Post "Karen Leona Anderson knows that at the very base of our sophistications we hold true to the fundaments of our animal nature: appetite and display. Part recipe book, part ledger, part lyric-eyed anthropological investigation, part confession, part carnival, part come-on, Receipt--with wit and candor and unexpected compassion--reveals those rituals both deep and tawdry by which the human condition persists in pursuit of what it most wants: beauty, love, food, sex, the big box store called Beyond, the little box store called Home."--Dan Beachy-Quick "Karen Leona Anderson doesn't miss a beat as she traces our consumerisms--economic, sexual, spiritual, and more--with irony, wit, sadness and more than a little humor. Receipt is, quite simply, a terrific book."--Linda Bierds "With a lexical panache and formal liveliness, Receipt makes of personal and domestic travails wondrous record. These poems, fiercely wrought, honor the fragility of the human heart in the daily occasion while flaunting the supreme powers of artistic invention. How thrilling such skill and spirit wanders the same aisles as we do!"--Dean Young "Where lesser poets might stop at the gimmick, Anderson unravels each garment until we're left with the barest, most essential questions: What does it mean to be a human (woman) in this world?"--Shelf Awareness "I hope we see more from this artist with her stylish ideas about society. She's full tone and full tilt; and yet keeps centered in her emotional projections with wonderful accuracy of language."--Washington Independent Review of Books