“Empathy, tenderness, curiosity… a radiant book, her mind leaping free to show us the heart of things”

“Dale Kushner’s new book of poems has what her wonderful first novel, The Conditions of Love, also has: empathy, tenderness, curiosity, and an artist’s drive to understand and depict human suffering and joys in some of their many varieties. From the stunning violence of the first poem, which imagines the first coupling of the Bible’s first couple, to the quiet final poem, in which the poet crosses a darkening landscape toward ‘knowledge of dissolution’ and new life, Kushner’s passionate scrutiny animates every subject she touches. She is fearless, too, taking the risk, in the middle section of the book, of writing dramatic monologues in the voices of women from different countries and different centuries enduring wars and hurricanes and the savagery of men. She is a close observer of the human body (‘skin/like linen pounded over rocks’) and she writes about nature with a freshness that can make you smell it. Desire is said to surprise Kushner’s Mary Magdalene as she walks the hills of Galilee, contemplating the death of Jesus–desire ‘sharp as the juice of wild onions on her fingers.’ In the third and last section of the book, Kushner turns her gaze inward, toward her parents and her own childhood and, in a long and powerful poem called ‘One World,’ to a moment just before her conception. This moment is August 6, 1945, when America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and when the poet’s mother is at a New Jersey beach, watching a daughter build sand castles while wishing for a second child. Some decades later, this second daughter writes, in a moment of hope, ‘The mind leaps free without its winding sheet.’ Kushner has given us a radiant book, her mind leaping free to show us the heart of things.”

—Dwight Allen

“Poetry on every page… full of texture and dimension, so much of which is unseen to the eye and yet felt so deeply”

“What a world Dale Kushner has created. Words don’t seem adequate to express such large, surround-sound feelings. I fell in love with this book, the story, the poetry on every page. I inhaled the book and felt like I spent these last days in nature, seeing and experiencing everything up close, my senses awakened, doused, indulged.

These characters were powerful–their flaws and their magnificence. How well and accurately Dale captured how we are all broken, and broken open, full of texture and dimension, so much of which is unseen to the eye and yet felt so deeply.

What a constellation I had access to, filled with these brilliant people, collages, all of them.

This book filled every chamber of my heart and made me fall in love with language all over again, made me want to write because I could suddenly hear my own inner songs. The Conditions of Love breathed new, good life into my lungs and under my skin.

What I want more than anything, as a reader, is to experience a story in a way that causes the inner plates to shift. This book did that. I am forever humbled, grateful.

—Jodi Cohen, Reader

“Awoke some mode of coping in my soul… to explore the complex relationships between members of our rather nontraditional family”

“Dear Dale,

I am writing to let you know how important and significant your novel was recently in my life. I picked up your book this summer at a used bookstore in Bayfield, Wisconsin, on a return trip to Madeline Island. We have been vacationing on the island with our family for years and were married there about 20 years ago.

My husband has had to endure two rounds of treatment for prostate cancer that have had an extremely troubling effect on our intimacy and sexual relationship. The climax to the situation occurred this summer as we have been adjusting to the effects of 7 weeks of radiation treatment. Your novel awoke some mode of coping in my soul that, while not solving the situation quickly, has given me a path forward.

In a wider way, the book also helped me to explore the complex relationships between members of our rather nontraditional family that includes a blended family of 5 half-grown brothers and sisters, and one youngest child I had while married to my current husband.

It is important, I think, to mark moments when the work we do affects others, and so in that spirit I am writing you. Thank you.”

—A.L., Reader

“Pure art… something new to me every time I read it”

“Dear Ms. Kushner,

It honestly feels surreal writing this email. I'll keep it short and hopefully profound, as I've found you do often in your writing.

I found your book, The Conditions of Love, when I was twelve. It was on the recommended table of a closing bookstore, and I decided to buy it based on the cover alone. When I finally got around to reading it, I was blown away. I sat down on my carpet, read for the next five hours, and finished it for the first time. I decided to annotate it a month later, still fresh on my mind, but I gave up when I started highlighting every line.

This book, your book, is pure art.

I re-read it every few months, open it up to a random page, and dive into the world of Eunice. I will love this book forever; it means something new to me every time I read it. Even now, I can't say for sure why I love this book so much. Maybe it's the nostalgia. Or the way you write, so full of life and truth. It could be the similarities I can draw to my own life and the life I haven't yet lived. All I know is that I love this book, the characters, and the imperfect way they love each other.

Your book, as well as your poems and blogs, have inspired me in so many ways. Your words are so eerily authentic, straight from universal secrets that I thought were unquestionably taboo and unique to me. It's like Eunice predicted my life before it happened, and yet the two of us could not be less alike.

I'm not sure if this email will ever find you, but I can only hope that the sentiment carries somewhere. Thank you for bringing this book into the world and for changing my life in ways I couldn't have begun to predict as a twelve-year-old.

Thank you.”

—D.B., Reader