Filial, sexual and parental concerns all come into play in The Clever Daughter, Susan Wicks's third book of poems. These themes and the poet's extraordinary treatment of them will already be familiar to many readers from her two previous collections, Singing Underwater and Open Diagnosis, and from her prose memoir, Driving My Father, published to great critical acclaim in 1995.

The present collection poses universal questions about grief and responsibility and does so in startling ways, confirming Susan Wicks's reputation as a writer of both realistic and visionary power.