Circle

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors of the following publications, in which these poems previously appeared, sometimes in different form: Crab Orchard Review—“An Evening at the Chinese Opera,” “Lisa Fremont,” “Dragon Inn,” and “KitchenAid Epicurean Stand Mixer” Florida Review—“The Laws of the Garden” Gulf Coast—“$4.99 All You Can Eat Sunday Brunch” Kenyon Review—“Lantern Festival” and “Instinct” Massachusetts Review—“Preparations” Michigan Quarterly Review—“Seven Changs” The Nation—“Morning Porridge” (as “Morning Ritual”) New England Review—“On Quitting,” “Hong Kong Flower Lounge,” “To Want,” and “Yang Gui Fei” New Letters—“Before” North American Review—“Edward Hopper Study: Office at Night” and “The Goal” Pleiades—“Man in the White Truck” Poetry—“Edward Hopper Study: Room in New York” and “Edward Hopper Study: Hotel Room” Poetry Daily—“Five-Year Plan” Slate—“Holiday Parties” Threepenny Review—“Five-Year Plan” Virginia Quarterly Review—“Sarah Emma Edmonds” and “Planting Tulips” “Mostly Ocean” appeared in Shade 2005: An Anthology, New Fiction and Poetry (Four Way Books, 2005). “Five-Year Plan” appeared in All This Useless Beauty: Contemporary Women Poets on Housework (University of Iowa Press, 2005). “Morning Porridge” appeared in Literature: The Human Experience Reading and Writing (Bedford Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2005). I also wish to thank the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers for a full scholarship (Holden Minority Scholarship), the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference for a John Atherton Scholarship in Poetry, the Kenyon Review Writer’s Conference for a Peter Taylor Fellowship, and the University of Michigan for a Hopwood Award. These generous gifts of financial support and time allowed me to complete this manuscript. This book was also completed with generous support and encouragement from many friends and mentors. x ...