Self-Portrait as Bettie Page

"If 'nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow rooms / and hermits are contented with their cells,' imagine the fun to be had in lacing pin-up icon Bettie Page into this 'scanty plot' of poetic corset, the sonnet. Rarely are form and content so well suited as in Heidi Czerwiec’s wittily kinky peek-a-boo of a collection, almost-but-not-quite bursting at its seams with author/persona conflation/confusion, wide-ranging allusions, and wonderful word-play. Full of 'levity' and 'heft,' the poems 'capture…in meter’s narrow aperture' not only the biography/mythology of Bettie Page, but also a strong sense of an authorial coming to terms with her own formal ars poetica. Indeed, 'it’s hard outside constraints that you construct,' but it’s easy as cheesecake to appreciate these poems, on the cutting edge of contemporary work that is keeping the seemingly ancient form of the sonnet smart, sexy, and ever so relevant." Moira Egan