Poetry. ‘We’ve all showed up naked to the big exam, ’ says Peter Harris. ‘Ignore that body near the door–it’s only your failed plans. These are the sort of laughable/humorous, piercing honesties with which Harris breaks the ice, and persuades us that his speaker has sailed through his exams naked and stumbled over the bodies. Alternately bemused, furious, crestfallen, optimistic, despairing–these poems speak from the sweaty field of the human condition. FREEING THE HOOK takes you on a backstage tour of love, death, family and solitude. Their dark, inquisitive, tender humor is our immunization. Their stubborn compassion is our salvation.–Tony Hoagland