Inventory at the All-night Drugstore

Book excerpt: Poetry. Winner of the Anhinga Prize for Poetry. "The reader takes an unpredictable, exhilarating trip with the subject matter of Erika Meitner's poems—from memories of a hormone-charged adolescence in the big city, to adult affairs of love and lust and loss; from learning to teach in a classroom filled with pubescent fireplug mirrors of oneself, to confronting one's Jewish history at the hands of an equally fiery grandmother. But riding herd on all this range is Meitner's distinctly snappy voice, a blend of assertiveness and vulnerability"—Stephen Corey. "These are poems like the tattoos she hymns and ponders—they mark our being with their delicate, indelible patterns"—Greg Orr.