Bow

Truth is anything we avoid, writes Penelope Austin in Bow, and the sentiment expressed here resonates throughout this collection. Written while Austin fought terminal cancer, Bow is an exploration of intricacies: a quest to debunk everyday half-truths. These poems are a testament to her will to live, Wyn Cooper writes in the introduction. She lived a full and complex life and wrote poems to match it. This book is a record of both facing death and facing life. Expansive in its scope, blatant in its purpose, Bow is a collection that pays homage to daily experience by dissecting it.