Pretend the World: Poems

*Pretend the World* confronts our false sense of safety in our self-created worlds. From her St. Paul kitchen to the historical shores of Lake Superior, from an airplane above Bagdad to a clothing factory in Guangdong, Kathryn Kysar pretends the glimmering and the sordid in these honest, searing poems that explore the inequities, cracks, and fissures in women's constructed lives. **Kathryn Kysar** is the author of *Dark Lake* (Loonfeather Press, 2002), a book of poetry, and is the editor of *Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers* (Borealis Books, 2008). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Anderson Center, and she has published poems in many anthologies and magazines, including *Great River Review*, *Mizna*, and *Painted Bride Quarterly*. She serves on the board of directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.