Art, children, marriage, breaking, rejoicing. Love is a many-branched tree and in Hamilton's newest poetry collection, her third, it's autumn or winter, the winds are kicking up and branches are flying everywhere - bursting into a thousand shapes. Or maybe it's Hamilton's heart that explodes into many dimensions. Tender, furious, grief-stricken, witty, urbane, elegiac, political, personal, erotic - these poems are all those things. Hamilton can't stop loving big no matter how chancy it is. All these shapes lend raw material for a poem: Mothers lose their babies. A boy loses his leg to war. A girl hides from serial killer Richard Speck. A virgin gets pregnant. A partner mourns a death at Walkerton. Women tumble into love, celebratory and foolhardy. Frank and elemental, LOVE WILL BURST INTO A THOUSAND SHAPES reminds us that life is worth everything we can throw at it.

"LOVE WILL BURST INTO A THOUSAND SHAPES is jazzy and engaging. Hamilton proves herself to be a real wordsmith, with a trickster's soul and a heart as big as New Mexico. The poems are enlightening, risky, rough, funny as hell, and ultimately very moving." &; Barry Dempster