Advance praise for Design:

Baron Wormser, author of songs from a voice

“These poems touch, caress, ponder and probe myriad facets of the world’s body, that tangible, earthy presence that sustains and enlivens us. A daughter in her fashion of all-encompassing Walt, Theresa Burns revels in the whole of the tuneful yet muddy yet encouraging yet saddening drama, the great participial thrust Walt was so keen on—living. Carefully wrought, each poem has that this-is-a-leaf-from-the-earth feel, a fullness of feeling that is explicit and—to use one of the poet’s words, evergreen.”

Lynn Melnick, author of refusenik

“The poems in Design are uncommonly moving, steady, and unafraid to embrace the often-fleeting beauty of the world, even amidst the ugly, or just the everyday. To read Design is to celebrate being, all of ours, and to remember—in our chaotic hour—the grace that words grant us all. Theresa Burns has given us this gift of her perception, so we may further appreciate our own.”

Nathan McClain, author of scale and previously owned

“In this beautiful first collection, Theresa Burns repeatedly proves her eye more than ‘just a muscle that records what it’s seeing’ as she constructs image after image, often informed by memory as well as the richness of the natural world and all that is subject to erosion and decay, to make sense of the ‘sweet / but bitter’ human experience, of seasons of plenty and seasons of lack. What Burns has managed here is a lively ode to the ordinary, to that which we should love and appreciate precisely because it doesn’t last. Finely crafted, richly textured, Design is an exciting debut!”

Purchase here on Amazon or at the Terrapin Bookstore.