Royal Baker's Daughter

These poems, at once elegant and earthy, reveal the inner workings of the human psyche and show us that sometimes the best defense against terror is making mischief. The Royal Baker's Daughter was raised on a diet of stone soup and the occasional leftover royal treat. This leaves her with an appetite for authenticity. With nothing but her two deft hands to guide her, she embarks on a journey into the dark forest, ""where sticks and stones and absolutes reign and nothing, even sin, is original.""""Fated to be fickle in food as in love. Not one flavor that she craves but a lick of this, of that. Sauerkraut and caraway, pickled beets, mutton, and leeks. This does not even touch upon the subject of sweets, for her nonnegotiable, as for others, faith. She takes her lumps of sugar straight. Or with crushed poppy seed to make a paste. Dusted over dumplings, powdered over cake. Never having swilled mother's milk, nutmeg in her coffee, black."" - excerpt from ""Fortune's Darling"" [copyright] The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. All rights are reserved.

""The Royal Baker's Daughter" is a remarkable book of poems. It explores, in familial, historical, and global contexts, the idea of boundaries and conflict, connection and redemption. These poems in a way remind us that all human relationships are negotiations--and that the integrity with which we navigate through them is often the only thing anchoring us to a comprehensible place." --Laura Orem, "The Montserrat Review", “"The Royal Baker’s Daughter" is a remarkable book of poems. It explores, in familial, historical, and global contexts, the idea of boundaries and conflict, connection and redemption. These poems in a way remind us that all human relationships are negotiations—and that the integrity with which we navigate through them is often the only thing anchoring us to a comprehensible place.” —Laura Orem, "The Montserrat Review"

Barbara Goldberg is the author of Berta Broadfoot and Pepin the Short: A Merovingian Romance; Cautionary Tales (winner of the Camden Poetry Award); and Marvelous Pursuits (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Award). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, and The Gettysburg Review. She is the coeditor of two anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry, including After the First Rain: Israeli Poems on War and Peace. Goldberg is senior speechwriter at AARP and teaches speechwriting, poetry, and translation at Georgetown University and at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland.