Defiance Street: Poems and Other Writing

Sandra Kleven walks a path of beautiful grit and hard honesty that remains uncompromising throughout. In poems like “Lament for Scott” and “As She Waits for Word on Her Biopsy,” she gnaws her thoughts on aging to the bone with confessions borne of a poet’s long consideration. Kleven’s prose pieces are wall-to-wall poems. She speaks of the famous Blue Moon tavern, of the birth of the second half of the 20th century, and of Theodore Roethke better than he ever did. - Nathan Brown, Oklahoma Poet Laureate and author of My Sideways Heart