The poems of Catherine Wagner are instantly sacramental, immediately mysterious. Showing songlines to Spicer's profanity and to Zukofsky's purest register, they move through musics entirely their own. There, Miss America finds a broken world wide-open by unharmed. There, Wagner proves the wisdom of divided hearts. She is a mage and a marvel. I believe she is our best.
Jack Spicer's Martians are back, but now they're talking wild girl-talk. In Catherine Wagner's Miss America, public and private collide in a new way, like matter and anti-matter. This is a conflagration. "That is damage talk," she ways, "Want to watch me/Make it." And I do. In fact, if I died, I might want to come back as Catherine Wagner.