Nadine Hitchiner's Salamander Morning is a tender, deeply contemplative, and meticulously wrought study of the self over the course of a life. "Everything is / moveable, even us..." we are told, and what a miracle this might be: the ability to accumulate experience-to witness, to learn, to adjust. Though, instead, encounter a speaker steady in her sadness. "[W]hat have I done, but put grief / into joy's chariot?" she asks, continually troubled by her life's fruition: "I don't trust time / does much difference." But enter the poem, which figures as her most well-intentioned gesture, "...a shoelace of breath / and a cape of love..." she offers to those she holds dear, hopeful she might match their affections: "I am not writing this without tears," she says. And later: "What if I did? Bring you coffee / tomorrow and all of our- / what if all of our / hydrangeas turned blue?" Oh, the sincerity of this collection. Oh, the accountability. Oh, the hyper-vigilance that reveals a radiantly worthy self.

-Susan L. Leary, author of Dressing the Bear

Melodic and ripe with sharp allusions and tantalizing imagery, Nadine Hitchiner is a master of her craft. The elusive way Hitchiner bends and braids language is reminiscent of great contemporaries Anne Carson and Natalie Diaz, yet is uniquely hers.

-Rachael Moorthy, author of RIVER MEETS THE SEA