Along the Fault Line

Tamara Madison's Along the Fault Line is a bildungsroman in poems, in which the mature writer honors the salty desert where the young writer began her literary life. Here is where her eye for landscape and ear for the music of daily life were born and groomed. Here is where she developed her voice, sharp as cactus, piquant as lemon, resplendent as bougainvillea: "I could see the tree snake along/the valley floor, watch vultures/circling in the pale desert." Madison is in love with the natural world and in love with language, this small and perfect book is testament to that love. Donna Hilbert, author of Threnody