The Traditional Feel of the Ballroom

The colloquial, quirky second collection from Gamble (Your Invitation to a Modest Breakfast) considers the challenges of womanhood through an anthropological lens. "Women wear skirts/ but still try to keep things out and men wear pants/ though their dicks are always trying to get out/ and see the sun," she writes in "The Sun and Open Air." Women's bodies frequently appear in this collection, often as something to keep vigil over: "Analyze the risks/of becoming a ravine./ Compare those with the risks of becoming a well/ with a wellbolted lid." Gamble lingers in sinister moments, as when a man transitions from flirty to predatory: "I was pushed into a doorway by a man from the pub.// I knew I couldn't fight him off, or that even if I could,/ there would be 5 others like him waiting." Yet despite the threats that come with getting close to someone, these poems move with tender vulnerability and care: "Good is the thing I stopped/ trying to be but you are where I want/ to put every good thing about me." Gamble's writing is candid and energetic as she confronts a fraught subject with intelligence. (July)