Benesh's poetry creates a whole new species--her inner scientist dances with her inner romantic and both personas brim with lyric humanity. These poems start little revolutions with playful music and worldly insight. They are like brilliant dinner companions you hope to be seated beside--funny, original, and deeply true. -- Valentina Gnup, author of Sparrow Octaves, A Certain Piece of Sky, and Ruined Music

It's a delight to trace the voice of the speaker, which hopscotches from musing to marveling, nostalgic to nervy, always in service of clarity and the explication of the human heart. The poems in Initial Conditions find in our everyday experiences--first dates and yoga poses and city rats and ninth grade field trips and show tunes-our important truths. Julie Benesh redeems the world through clarity of vision and attention to sonic nuances. These are wonderful poems. --Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs

Julie Benesh is the ultimate trickster. Her poetic sleight of hand is to feign nostalgia, then yank the magic carpet away. The results? A playful dance of death. A tour of the underworld. A life turned into mythology. Goth poems that sway like Siouxsie and the Banshees. Trust me, it's a wonderful ride. --Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine

"Julie Benesh has a gift to introduce herself in her poetry filled with original imagery and metaphors of everyday events and memories. This collection of poems will delight readers with wit, paradox, and irony. We feel her presence in each poem, whether considering the complexities of our lives or some inevitable sorrows which confront us all." -Mark Fishbein, Chancellor of PGN-Poetry Global Network's Poetry Academy