"Glass Jaw is a potent inquiry into the brutality and beauty of fighting, the "underworld of secret choir" that can be the site of both suffering and salvation. Raisa Tolchinsky's lines arrive with the swiftness and solidness of a punch, leaving devastation and wonder in their wake. An astonishing, unforgettable collection."--Laura van den Berg
"What a stunning debut from an essential new voice! Raisa Tolchinsky writes with the virtuosity of a true fighter, transporting us, via her profound lyrics, to the twilit world of the boxing ring and beneath, to Dantean realms of deep reckoning and transcendent song. Glass Jaw sparkles with rare intensity; let this book light your way through darkness, to the stars."--Kiki Petrosino
"Physical torture, writes Elaine Scarry in The Body in Pain, 'is language-destroying.' Glass Jawtracks a young woman seeking a new voice through the gendered and punishing inferno of the boxing ring: 'Before the ring I made a life out of language / but there were places it would not reach-- / the ring needed no words, no stone / to crown me in concussion.' In poems as vulnerable and tensile as glass, Tolchinsky bravely frees the wired-shut jaw of abuse dividing "a body and the rest of its life."--Lisa Russ Spaar, author of "Madrigalia: New & Selected Poems"