To Eve

In To Eve, Sarah Dickenson Snyder dismantles the mythology of blame and rewrites the story of the first woman as one of agency, hunger, and sacred curiosity. This book-length poem moves from Eden to our modern-day life of parking garages, newborn clothing, placing the phone after a father's diagnosis, and always in Snyder's engaging voice: I don't understand Reiki. Why not touch? / And yet I do believe in the energy / of between - look how magnets pull. In these times, we need these retellings, this reframing and reclaiming of maternal power, female desire, and strength. Let's just love everyone, imagine / each is a god - this gorgeous book reminds us of our humanness and what it's like to care and caretake, to live the larger life despite that no one I know has returned / from death to say, "You'll be fine." Both intimate and expansive, To Eve insists that knowledge is not a fall, but a beginning. - Kelli Russell Agodon, author of Accidental Devotions