Where the Sky Opens

“In Where the Sky Opens, Laurie Klein poses an implicit question of location. As it turns out, that sky opens in the reader's heart, crossed by flights of love and loss in poems that sing like red-winged blackbirds on the edge of a northern marsh. With a deftness of image and patience of faith, the poet reminds us to 'let grief be, with every breath, a readied womb.'”

Paul J. Willis

“Klein's first collection of poems is a glorious hymn of praise, inviting us into intimacy with things both known and unknown, earthy and sublime. Her language lifts you from the page into a poetic reverie and deeper reverence for life.”

Christine Valters Paintner

“What sinewy, mature poems these are, dynamic and packed with color! Klein's lines zero in on her life's crucial details that then enlarge, resonate, and fill the frame of the reader's imagination. Dig in. Enjoy. This poet knows her way through words to things too vital to ignore.”

Luci Shaw

“I cannot remember the last time I read a poet with such burly, thrumming, love-addled music--dense and real and salty and singing, adamant and muscular and sharp. Read any three of these poems and you will be more awake, which is what the best poetry is for. This book is that kind of poetry.”

Brian Doyle

“In her debut collection Where the Sky Opens, Klein invites us, her 'journey mates,' to encounter a world more beautiful, complex and fragile than we often expect at the beginning of our faith histories. From the natural wonder of toads and lichens and mountain trails to the "wild, savory, perilous, graced" marriage relationship, these poems illuminate a sensitivity to life's lights and shadows through some of the most lush and visually intricate language I've read in years. Klein does not only write about, but through the loss of faith--and the love that redeems it--in 'the kingdom emerging in guises we never knew.'”

Tania Runyan