Nest Full of Cries


The twenty poems in this series are further speculations on the Hansel and Gretel tale. They contrast the innocence of childhood with the realism of a family in need. Adastra Press, 2000.
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Reviews and Responses


"With precision, passion, and insight, Martha Carlson-Bradley strips a familiar Grimm tale to its terrifying essence in this subtle and haunting sequence. By looking slightly away from the narrative, Carlson-Bradley de-familiarizes it, and uncovers 'all the truth' by telling it 'slant,' as Dickinson said. As a result, the reader experiences the story of Hansel and Gretel as if it were her own. This is poetry of great compression and resonance; it is what poetry should be."
~Joan Aleshire, Litany of Thanks

"Nest Full of Cries is a small but very full book. Satisfying. Even the crone would smack her shriveled lips over the richness of Carlson-Bradley's imagery, this strange, wise scrutiny of desperation."
~Rebecca Rule, "Book Notes," Sunday (Concord, NH) Monitor

"Martha Carlson-Bradley fractures this fairy tale into prisms that shine with lyric richness, psychological acuity, and remarkably novelistic breadth. She exposes all the scary, sad angles with an unflinching eye and imagination …"
~Michael Ryan, New and Selected Poems

"These are haunting poems. … They are enchanting not only for their subject matter but for their timing, the skill with which they are crafted, the precision of their language."
~Jane Eklund, Monadnock Ledger

"The eye is clear and discerning, the ear never off-pitch, and the lyric sensibility delivers moments bursting with acute knowledge. … if you don't feel a frisson while reading this book, you're asleep."
~Ellen Dudley, Slow Burn