"What might it mean to be in relation as husband and wife, as brother and sister, mother and daughter, father and daughter, as one wedded to the sky above and the surrounding landscape? In the matchstick litanies, jo reyes-boitel is an attentive poet-observer telling us the answers rest in the nucleus of a family haunted by hurt. In this family men inherit pain, control pain, and bequeath its violence while women labor and exist at their mercy. In this way, the matchstick litanies is timely and speaks to the anti-woman sentiment so prevalent today. But despite the wreckage, it is reyes-boitel's lyrical crafting of brief pastoral moments-mesquite trees passed on a winter's drive home or the 'constant bird caws, the constant sun'-that provide both poet and reader not escape from familial combustion, but a momentary solace. -Niki Herd, author The Language of Shedding Skin and co-editor Laura Hershey: On the Life & Work of an American Master"--