With insight, humour, and uncompromising honesty, Nobody's Jackknife explores power and powerlessness, violence and tenderness, addiction and love. These poems refuse to separate the mundane from the profound: Rolling Rock beer, the racial coding of baseball players, and a melodic litany of yoga asanas intertwine in this brilliant and compelling collection.

With insight, humor, and uncompromising honesty, Nobody’s Jackknife explores power and powerlessness, violence and tenderness, addiction and love. These poems refuse to separate the mundane from the profound: Rolling Rock beer, the racial coding of baseball players, and a melodic litany of yoga asanas intertwine in this brilliant and compelling collection. In 1960s Pittsburgh, a young girl finds her way to adulthood in a family dominated by a hard-drinking, blue-collar father, brothers who excel at baseball and machismo, and a pervasive but ultimately distant Catholicism. Her mother, unable to rescue her, offers two lifelines: reading and yoga. Using an astonishing array of poetic styles, Ellen McGrath Smith shows a rare gift for subtlety, an expansive intellect, and a sometimes brutal candor in this groundbreaking debut collection.