Great Regulars: With a fresh, wry voice, Meghan O'Rourke can

make the quotidian sound strange, the same way Joseph Cornell could assemble a magical collage by pasting magazine clippings into out-of-context compositions. In "Descent," the speaker's own birth begins with a metaphoric shock:

I was born a bastard in an amphetamine spree,

from Mary Karr: The Washington Post: Poet's Choice

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