The Willow Grove
Finalist for the Pulitzer 1997
“Sheck …can reach moments of lyrical intensity that remind us of Sylvia Plath…And not since Plath has anyone used myth in such a potent way.”
—Michael Collier, Partisan Review
“Her lines are fluid and seductive, the images powerful and arresting, and the voice insistent…This is a poet who sees beauty and danger as parallel forces, and senses, with some dread the fragility of our human arrangements.”
—Suzanne Matson, Harvard Review
“The poems interconnect so deeply that the book is nearly one poem… A common spirit rises so directly from these poems’ source that it is nearly invisible on first reading. But it is essential, and rises through them as water through trees….The language ..is confident and accurate, its images tracking reality with utmost care…The Willow Grove is dark, and so is our age.”
—Pamela Alexander, The Boston Book Review