In her fifth collection of poems, Ellen Doré Watson lends her supple voice to a multiplicity of characters, each with his or her own particular dilemma, distraction, or disarray: Junie biking home to find a new mom, Edur wondering whether he’s anyone’s father, a pregnant teen starving herself to lose the fetus, or the widower Lew buoyed by a vision of his wife after her death. With a novelist’s finesse and a poet’s details, Watson creates lives that resonate with poignancy and urgency.

In Dogged Hearts Ellen Doré Watson demonstrates a capacious talent for invention and empathy and, with her incomparable linguistic brio, gives us an unforgettable look at how loss and disconnection can usher in chance-to-change reverie and unexpected veerings towards life.