Knives on a Table

A collection of 62 intensely atmospheric poems. In this richly varied collection, Peter Mladinic's myriad voices reveal his extraordinary gift for lyric storytelling. The speakers in his fresh and unexpected dramatic monologues populate a universe of recognizably American experience, telling of joys and horrors, childhood memories, murders committed, lovers desired and lost, lives fractured, heartbreak endured and survived (or not). An always believable surrealism of the everyday sometimes takes us into the dream life of families, births and deaths, moments full of illumination and love, sorrow and exhilaration. Mladinic's poems are all about the inescapable reality of others whom he fully imagines in all their unforgettable poignance and irrepressible vitality. His disciplined, energetic, highly pressured free verse and brilliant attention to local detail celebrate life - its tragedy, its comedy, its romance and abundance - all the while taking into account, with the deepest compassion, the relentless passage of time. - Elizabeth Frank, Pulitzer Prize winner in 1986 for her biography Louise Bogan: A Portrait.