Publisher's Synopsis
In this new collection by Kirsten Irving language and ritual are expressions of arcane power. As in the anonymous, cross-cultural folk tale Master of All Masters, the master names things in order to possess them; girls and young women enter worlds delineated and controlled by men, where fantasy and whimsy are forms of fettering. In response, the protagonists and personae of these poems study shapeshifting, practice contortion and construct their own ceremonial acts of submission, always with an eye on the keys that dangle from the gaoler's belt.
