Half-Hazard by Kristen Tracy

Half-Hazard by Kristen Tracy

Half-Hazard is the Winner of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award from the Poetry Foundation for a debut by an American poet over forty.

Half-Hazard is a book of near misses, would-be tragedies, and luck. As Kristen Tracy writes in the title poem, "Dangers here. Perils there. It'll go how it goes." The collection follows her wide curiosity, from growing up in a small Mormon farming community to her exodus into the forbidden world, where she finds snakes, car accidents, adulterers, meteors, and death-marked mice. These wry, observant narratives are accompanied by a ringing lyricism, and Tracy's knack for noticing what's so funny about trouble and her natural impulse to want to put all the broken things back together. Full of wrong turns, false loves, quashed beliefs, and a menagerie of animals, Half-Hazard introduces a vibrant new voice in American poetry, one of resilience, faith, and joy.

Kristen Tracy is the author of Hung Up, Lost It, and Crimes of the Sarahs. Her poetry and stories have been published in a variety of magazines and reviews, and she has won three Pushcart nominations. A Chorus for Peace: A World Anthology of Poetry by Women is her coeditor. Kristen is a Rhode Island native.