The Waiting Room of the Imperfect Alibis

In The Waiting Room of Imperfect Alibis, Katrin Talbot asks herself that most terrifying and difficult of questions: who are you now? Each of us finds herself changed after these years of sorrow and grief, but how? She finds herself to be a piece of shimmering lake, a grade-school kickball champ, a careful cutter of silk, a martyr, an icon, a string on Picasso's guitar, a merhag, your anything, your stunt double. Best of all, we find her to be a guide who lowers us into the well of selves, sings to us all the while so we don't lose heart, pulls us back out, and marvels with us at what was found there.

-Rita Mae Reese, author of The Book of Hulga

Katrin Talbot's The Waiting Room of Imperfect Alibis is imbued with the perceptions of a poet who carefully considers the everyday in our lives and the natural world around us, filling each poem, each page with insight and memory, sorrow, and delight.

-Jesse Lee Kercheval, author of America that island off the coast of France

Graceful coordination is something one might expect from an accomplished writer, a virtuoso musician, or even a dedicated swimmer-but when all three such talents become intertwined, they achieve a rare kind of artistry, as demonstrated by the poems of Katrin Talbot. In this remarkable (and often profound) collection of her recent work, the reader will sense the delicate rhythms of her artfully selected vocabulary, often lit up with touches of sensuality and pure wit-even including some impressionistic thoughts on such matters as the essential percussion of tennis balls in the dryer. On virtually every page, Talbot memorably reminds us that we are all going through key changes, / major and minor, / some of us still humming.

-Marilyn L. Taylor, author of Outside the Frame (Kelsay Books, 2021) and former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin