Belle Waring is so fine a poet as to be able to grip the unbearable and shape it into poetry that shocks us, but saves us by the beauty of words that refuse to sensationalize or to let us look away. She exposes doctors who should be factory workers for the mechanical way they treat human bodies and fathers who cast the darkest of shadows across their children"s smiles. Waring"s language in Dark Blondelifts the reader out of troubles and into a clearer understanding of the human condition; it"s not a naively optimistic vision, but it offers much hope.