Real Daughter

Poetry. "In these bracing meditations on matriarchal inheritance and the nature of the real, Lynn Otto breaks open pervasive, inherited silences, the 'prickered vines' that 'hold one so still.' By putting into motion various methods of perception, Otto transforms habitual stillness into 'survivable distance.' She has written a rare and moving kind of lyric autobiography--one rich with the shifting, the gaps, the push and pull of an alert, multitudinous mind."--Mary Szybist

"Lynn Otto's powerful collection, REAL DAUGHTER, reminds me that what appears quiet and straightforward can yield a high order of surprise. These subtle, smart poems explore essential questions: What is it to be real, as in authentic? What can we expect, and what should we expect, of ourselves, for ourselves, and in relation to loved ones? Otto's poems move with elegant precision, wit, and a distinctive music. As lyrical inquiries into the tensions between mothers and daughters, religious belief and felt doubt, ritual that both binds and separates us, Otto's work brings to mind W. H. Auden's description of poetry as the clear expression of mixed feelings. REAL DAUGHTER is a lucent exploration of familial love and its entanglements, and of the challenges of being a self among others."--Michele Glazer

"In her compelling debut collection, Lynn Otto explores inherent complications of family, our ache to understand our attachments. Our allegiances are multiple and continually in flux. What happens when they are at odds with one another? How do we hold on and simultaneously let go? The carefully wrought, often heart-rending poems in REAL DAUGHTER address these questions."--Andrea Hollander

"'How is it,' Lynn Otto asks, 'we each learn / one story, and every sentence ever after / sounds to us like it belongs to it?' In other words, what is the nature of meaning? REAL DAUGHTER relentlessly and movingly poses this most essential question, as it examines mortality, perception, time, and filial affection in a clear, ruminative voice that remembers and imagines at the same time."--Christopher Howell