Patty Seyburn Miss Dickinson’s were a must-have: complex like soufflés, souls or casseroles, no simple assemblage of milk, sugar, cornstarch and you stir and stir until veins paint your arm with ardor and tedium. It will get viscous and boil, the bubbles voluptuous, reluctant. Result is not the paradigm at work here – you could have bought pudding, saving yourself time for art. Take preventative measures (plastic wrap) or a skin...

Suffering and poetic inspiration are complex traveling companions. Some poets rise out of inflicted harshness and physical deprivation. Inversely, physical comfort can deepen a writer’s sense of poetic urgency. We have proof of the latter in Patty Seyburn’s third title, Hilarity.