Thistle Author:Melissa Kwasny Melissa Kwasny?s poems are so exact in their movement and presentation, so fresh in their botanical and observatory language, they invoke for the reader, with aching clarity, what it would be like to be brave enough to touch both the inner and outer worlds simultaneously, and with identical honesty and care. There is a weird, luminous parallax,... more » too, that descends as one reads these poems, as though the spirits of Hopkins, Dickinson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning had combined to possess a poet with post-modern perspective and craft. And so one sees and enjoys anew the great tradition of meditative poetry in our language: a gift of staggering proportions. It is difficult for me to express my admiration and enthusiasm. ?Christopher Howell Final Judge, The Idaho Prize for Poetry 2005« less