Bare and Breaking

"Bare & breaking is one of the most gripping debuts I’ve read in recent years. Masterful in its technique and heart-rending in its emotional range, this memorable collection tells the story of sexual passion, its devastating aftermath and the slow road home."

"I celebrate Karin Schimke’s bold exposure of wanting, her naked desire. These poems know the exquisite agony of uninhibited loving, and the addictive pain of losing that love. Her ‘warts-n-all’ poems reveal a courageous vulnerability. Schimke’s poetry whispers, hollers, moans, bends and extends unexpectedly and beyond expectation."

"Schimke’s breath comes straight from the diaphragm, but she catches it, just in time, in a finely formed voice that surprises me, every time. I like it when she does this. It reminds me that to break through, you have to go in bare."