When the Empress Laughs

This book, like nearly all of Hamburg's previous works embodies a distinct period of transition in the artist's approach. In the three sections of the work, composed over a two year period, we can feel the impending cataclysm, the anticipation and climactic realization of character that takes place. Anyone who has ever been overcome by love or by solitude, been seduced by suffering or by redemption is, as usual, guaranteed to be stirred by Hamburg's contrast of unrelenting honesty and austere discipline of form. The imagery and texture invoked by the author fills the readers senses and takes a single candle down into the damp subconscious where we are greeted by the super-real sensations of our dreams and of our youth. Eternally fascinating and terrifying, these are the images that make us immortal, gods of the flesh."Ethan F. Hamburg turns the poem into a brutally honest depiction of love and self-hate, elevating beauty while making himself small."Lee Kitzis