Allegheny, Monongahela.

Allegheny, Monongahela

Erinn Batykefer

Red Hen Press

PO Box 3537, Granada Hills, CA 91394

9781597091343 $16.95 www.redhen.org

Winner of the 2007 Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, Allegheny, Monongahela a poetic drama about the complex relationship of two sisters as they grow up in Western Pennsylvania. Narrated through sonnets and free verse, Allegheny, Monongahela touches upon the issues of violence within the family, and the powerful impulses for limitless creativity and limitless self-destruction. An absorbing tale of the myriad facets of human nature. "Dog Poem": In my dog skin, I am always starving. / I am wildly alert, distrustful of things that do not bleed / or otherwise die. // I've been known to drag old bones with me for miles. / If I bury them, the only question is how long / till I'm clawing the ground to feel them under my teeth again. / I never satisfy this want.