"These new poems by Karen Subach give me faith in a future poetry that can sustain true bravery and original mind in our measured written languages or songs. Here is a dedication to human observation, the human voice, that promises a continuing tradition of love and wisdom that freshens and surprises us even as some things seem to darken. This is brilliant and exciting work."

Norman Dubie

"Everywhere in Her Breath on the Window the seemingly distant worlds of history, myth, and fairy tale are made vividly immediate (with all of their compassion, all of their savagery, intact) through Subach’s sense of specific detail: 'The [dismembered] boy’s skin was the color of hazelnuts and the local tea,' or of a zither case, 'Across the inside of the lid were gray streaks— / the impression of strings.' But keep in mind that these poems and their exotica, their research, still admit a world (our own contempo world) where nude Frisbee is played, and Halloweeners get Kit Kats at the door. Decades in the making, and evidencing decades of care, this book is filled with richly allusive poems that trust they’ll find grown-up readers."

Albert Goldbarth

"The dazzling poems of Karen Subach’s collection, HerBreath on the Window, embody the poet’s profound belief in artistic beauty, her understanding of the sustaining qualities of the poetic song and her deep faith in the human imagination. Formally brilliant, psychologically mature, these often historical monologues and dramatic lyrics allow us to experience the invisible complexities that form the pulse of our most intimate reckonings. This is a book to savor."

David St. John