Book excerpt: "The soul remembers all of this. How I swept the floor / with my golden hair. How I fed it watermelon and wine / from a porcelain dish. How I called it teacher and it called me teacher's pet." Metaphysical in concern and hypermodern in tone, Bridget Lowe returns in this appropriately titled, much-anticipated second collection, determined as ever to make meaning from the perversity of suffering. My Second Work is rare in its ability to be both completely idiosyncratic and widely resonant, as Lowe transforms experiences of shame, disgust, and bewilderment into a kind of mutant hope. Poems in this collection have appeared in the New Yorker and Poetry and were honored by the Poetry Society of America.