Poetry frequently warrants an element of autobiography. Broadly, it conveys a truth not produced in fiction. You may find yourself, when reading some of these pieces, with an urge to reach out to the poet, such is their evocatively traumatic content. Yet the beauty of many of these poems is that they have more than one interpretation – and, as the postmodernists have suggested in the past – reader interpretation is as significant as authorial intent. There is an adage derived from the phenomenologists suggesting that one must have a breakdown in order to have a breakthrough. And though there is plenty of tragedy and a sense of existential distress throughout this collection, we see Bianca Bowers at her best in Thief in crisis moments, with meditations on time stealing youth, on artistic needs both material and sublime, and on the rejection of social norms. In her sixth poetry collection, Bianca Bowers bleeds onto the page, creating a work of great beauty. —Richard Gibney