keep your heart open.

she is beauty she is grace she will definitely never stab anyone in the face (or anywhere on their person)

“i will, however, try to stab a picture that looks like another adult woman who exists in the vicinity of my boyfriend for zero dollars”

The book takes the form of pairing poems in the women's voices with mini-essays in Walter's own. And Walter takes the time to explore some of the women in Shakespeare's life as well as his plays, imagining multiple possibilities for Anne Hathaway as well the Dark Lady (the latter's wry, dry voice as a Black Londoner was very effective, I thought.) In short: I do recommend the book as a whole if these things are relevant to your interests. The poems may not all land equally well. I understand the reviews that found some of them too arch, or too close to the bathetic. But this is a matter of taste; and I found them all interesting character studies. Walter's playfulness with language shines through, I think (and some of the twists imagined for her heroines are delightful.) And the essays are, when discussing Shakespeare, acute, and when discussing the colleagues alongside whom she has performed his work, invariably generous.

thinking about dara and desderi one-upping each other in "aspetta aspetta" and outpacing the orchestra again

BARON SCARPIA HAS BEEN DEAD FOR 222 SLUTTY, SLUTTY YEARS