The Middle Room by Jennifer Moxley

Moxley’s detailed and lushly-written memoir is set largely in San Diego and follows her life thus far from childhood to marriage. Consistently focused on poetry and poets, it dwells on the curious ways Americans now find their way into the literary life. “There was a secret force deep in my psyche which, like a Cold War double agent, worked in tandem with my insecurity, a sort of wicked interior spy that emerged at the most inopportune moments to make sport of all my fears and fill me with crippling self-doubt as regards my natural fitness to live the life of the mind”–from the text.

Jennifer Moxley teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Maine. Her books of poetry include Imagination Verses, Often Capital, The Sense Record and The Line.