On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone

Nancy Boutilier's first Black Sparrow book, According to Her Contours (1992) landed her on the map as an important new writer. Nominated for a Lambda Award, the collection of stories and poems was hailed by Booklist as "an exciting exploration of relationships, gender identity, and the politics of clothes from a woman who chose high tops over high heels and has the courage to love her family and her lesbianism". The intense, disarming new poems of On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone fearlessly address life's deepest riddles: "the unexamined life / is not worth / living. / That's Plato / but "expunge" is one word you can live with / believe it or not/ things never lost have / been found..". Childhood, memory, love, death, "the cosmic question mark" -- all the old imponderables are pursued again here, in limber, lucid lines that go directly to the source, bringing back invigorating news.