Catherine Wagner's poems have elicited resounding, answering calls from several continents. "These are poems of sex and identity, poems of spleen and craving, poems of grim energy and outspoken crisis. I love them. I am bored by so many of America's new bloods but this woman can write. Her neo-surreal vision and neo-dada attitude are matched by an exceptional feel for the magic of simple language--her poems organically grow down the page without effort, every line seeming right. She manages this by infusing every new image (and every repetition) with a corresponding voice posture. Very American, very urban, very modern and yet harking back to the best 'beat' legacies."--Josephine Ebert, U.K. poetry critic. Here in the United States, Rae Armantrout has this to say: "Jack Spicer's Martians are back, but now they're talking wild girl-talk. In Catherine Wagner's Miss America, public and private collide in a new way, like matter and anti-matter. This is a conflagration. "That is damage talk," she says, "Want to watch me/Make it. " And I do. In fact, if I died, I might want to come back as Catherine Wagner." Such enthusiastic identifications don't come cheap: Wagner's poems are worth their weight in flesh and gold.