Inside Spiders

Winner of the 2013 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, a collection of gemlike poems combining delicacy with unmistakable hardiness. These poems are exquisite, deceptively complex revelations of the domestic and natural worlds: chiseled, unflinching, set beside a "painted paper lake/of gilded folds laid straight,/the gowned hills/on hidden feet/late coming light." Reminiscent of the writing of Robert Creeley, Shinn's debut conveys a life condensed-deeply felt and keenly observed.