A Semblance: Selected and New Poems (1975-2007) is the first selected compilation of poetry by Laura Moriarty. Drawn from her previous poetry collections and including new work, this selected demonstrates Moriarty’s ability to make each lyric phrase into a portal where we find ourselves turning at once in two directions—backward, to probe the newly exposed limits in our old ways of understanding, and forward to experience a more evolved and involved attention to our world through the animated potentials she offers us. Whether examining the historically gendered gaze of art or of culture’s narratives and their impact upon the individual, or the symmetries that interlink to figure our social and political horizons, or the destructive forces that both expose and explode our meaning of self, Moriarty’s poems offer the expansive pleasure of revelation in each finely distilled articulation. This selected includes an introduction by the esteemed poet Norma Cole, whose awards include a recent Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant.