Publisher's Synopsis
"Terrible Grace is a stunning and surreal carnival, where "the next tent/ is ten shades of blackstrap dim" and the family is made up of the "exquisitely broken and extraterrestrial interlopers". I admire this poetry's astounding images and well-made lines and the way the two voices blend and diverge. I'm taken by their close attentions to the mysteries of fatherhood and gender, the mystery of love, not to mention language itself: "...cold enough to see our breath we made language in the tall grass on the days the words won't come we hold hands."
-Joseph Millar, Author of Kingdom: Carnegie-Mellon Poetry Series and Dark Harvest: Eastern Washington University Press.
-Joan Larkin, author of My Body: New and
Selected Poems: Hanging Loose Press
-Matthew Dickman, Author of Wonderland,
W. W. Norton and Company
-John Dorsey, Author of Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, Spartan Press
"In Terrible Grace, Paul Koniecki and Christopher Soden peer into the lives of carnival performers, discover 'the fault/ in others and the beauty in ourselves.' These portraits are nuanced, rich with dazzling imagery, charged with interiority, and make visible 'radiant misfortune.' Koniecki and Soden possess impressive imaginations. I'm thankful they wrote this book.
-Eduardo Corral, author of: Slow Lightning: Yale Younger Poets and Guillotine: Graywolf Press