“‘I NEVER EXPERIENCED the world / as anything but ruined and beautiful’ begins Amie Whittemore in the gorgeously lush collection Hesitation Waltz. In these vibrant elegies, odes, and epistles, Whittemore does not spare us the pain and anxiety of witnessing ongoing ruin. But she doesn’t refuse beauty or abundance either. Instead, she has created a book that feels like someone telling you who they are, what they love, and what they mourn, and my god, did I need to read this. Both pragmatic and lyrical, Whittemore ‘praises the mutilated world’ as if responding to Adam Zagajewski and Ursula LeGuin, such as in ‘Goldfinch Ode’: ‘though we crush / the earth’s riches beneath our weight, / your gold soars unvarnished, ornamenting empire.’ In this potent and candescent collection in which there are poems about ghosting along side poems in the voice of petroleum, the luminous thread spiraling throughout is a voice that feels big enough to contain the entire world, while also saying ‘what I know of love fits inside my mouth.’ …Funny and generous, big-hearted and precise, this is a collection I will be returning to for its unapologetic transparency and beauty.” — Kendra DeColo, author of I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World and My Dinner with Ron Jeremy