The poems in Carrie Fountain's third collection, The Life, exist somewhere, as Rilke says, between 'our daily life' and 'the great work' - an space where sidelong glances live alongside shouts to heaven. In elegant, colloquial language, Fountain observes her children dressing themselves in fledgling layers of personhood, creating their own private worlds and personalities, and makes room for genuine marvels in the midst of routine. Attuned to the delicate, fleeting moments that comprise a life, these poems offer a guide by which to pilot, if not the perfect life, the life we are given.