In AFTER THE DANSE, we discover the poetry and prose of Mercedes Webb-Pullman, whose feminine sensibilities and mytho-poetic lyricism dance like the flames of a candle. It is her voice - irreverent, direct, musical - singing with a playfully sinister passion, illuminating the dark chambers of the human heart. Webb-Pullman masterfully observes the commedia within the tragic, the mythic within the heartbreak. She draws readers in gently, via querulous Greek gods and demigods, before proceeding to the lives of survivors of the 20th Century's furies, a pirouette into the blood and marrow of ruthless authenticity. AFTER THE DANSE is a must for anyone with an interest in poetry that both cuts like a knife and caresses with the gentlest of touches, a haunting reliquary that only gains momentum the further you read.