Callista’s poetry spans everything from the domestic to the feral, from fairy tales to history. Her poems are woven together with a fullness of language that is astonishing in its depth and beauty.
~ Sarah Tsaing, author of Grappling Hook

Callista Markotich’s poetry is the work of an enchantress. She’s an arrow flying around the target of our hearts, a fistful of fireflies above a forest floor. Whatever the magic at the core of Wrap in a Big White Towel, she approaches language for all the hyperbole it provides, and adds formalities: a fugue, a glosa. Much of what she delves into has been steeped in grief, but the life she’s lived makes these poems incandescent, suffused with freshness. That leads her to the line: “These are things I’d tell if I were telling.” Words gust across our grief-loosed memories. Still, she continues: “I’d like to build a little monument for you / a piano, its walnut case no bigger / than a beetle’s carapace.”

Who else takes such risks; expecting us to follow wherever she goes? Our names echo inside this book.
~ Barry Dempster, author of Being Here: the Chemistry of Startle

This collection glows with a warm intelligence, the kind that can be found only in poetry. The sure and elegant writing transports the reader to a place of blood-and-bone knowing where memory and grief and gratitude for past and future blessings reside. I love these poems—their impeccable but easy-going formality, their range, their perfectly played music meant not only for the ear but also for the heart.
~ Lorna Crozier, Governor-General Award Winner, author of After That, poems about grief