Embellishments

Embellishments is Virginia Chase Sutton's first book. Full of raw, powerful reflections from her life, Sutton tackles the demons of her childhood and their continuing presence in her adult life. Yet this finely written verse avoids the heaviness of "issue" writing --- the magically realized experiences in these pages offer us a story worth reading.

Remembering itself comes to seem a kind of spell: a painful, erotic, dizzying fascination that holds this speaker in thrall. -- Mark Doty

This is not the poetry of victimhood, but rather, the clear and necessary poetry of witness. -- Bruce Weigl

Virginia Chase Sutton's poems are intimate, lush and full of that rarest of human attributes---empathy. -- Mark Wunderlich