In this debut collection, which has been selected for the National Poetry Series, Anna Journey invites the reader into her peculiar, noir universe nourished with sex and mortality. Her poems are haunted by demons, ghosts, and even the living who wander exotic landscapes that appear at once threatening and seductive. In these poems, her sly speaker renames a pink hibiscus on display at Lowe's, "Lucifer's Panties"; another character chants, "I'd fall devil / over heels over edge over oleander"; and one woman writes a letter to the underworld:
Dear black bayou, once, by a river
I bit a man's neck. His scent: the raw
teak air husked inside stomachs of six
Russian nesting dolls--the ones in the attic I pulled
apart and open. The ones I
pulled apart and open like Styrofoam cups.

In this debut collection, which has been selected for the National Poetry Series, Anna Journey invites the reader into her peculiar, noir universe nourished with sex and mortality. Her poems are haunted by demons, ghosts, and even the living who wander exotic landscapes that appear at once threatening and seductive. In these poems, her sly speaker renames a pink hibiscus on display at Lowe's, "Lucifer's Panties"; another character chants, "I'd fall devil / over heels over edge over oleander"; and one woman writes a letter to the underworld:
Dear black bayou, once, by a river
I bit a man's neck. His scent: the raw
teak air husked inside stomachs of six
Russian nesting dolls--the ones in the attic I pulled
apart and open. The ones I
pulled apart and open like Styrofoam cups.