This collection of poetry is divided into three parts. The title poem is the last in the book and looks at how we deal with failure and find a way to move on. The poems here are thought-provoking, drawing on the impulse to believe and disbelieve, to search for a solid base in our lives. I really enjoyed the poems here, finding myself reading one and then sitting back to think on it, sometimes lingering or rereading a certain section, and thinking about how I related to similar situations in my own life. Very good.

It is valid to question the possibility of objectivity regarding oneself, particularly as mental illness and addictions bend perspective. These poems are unafraid of shining light in all corners; LaPierre shows us that beauty and ugliness hold hands in the wasteland and, though acknowledged, both must be left there.

There’s a lot to process in WASHING OFF THE RACCOON EYES for such a slim book, because it’s so richly varied in both style and subject matter. Taut surrealism. Fraught relationships. Fierce urban vignettes. Sometimes all in the same poem.

These hard-edged, insistent, defiant poems rule under a quality of light that is not golden hour but neon and white incandescent. The poems have glittering turns of phrase to pique & speak their truths.