forthcoming, Jackleg Press

“Is it possible to leave behind one life and find a new one? This is the provocative question ‘Hey, Pickpocket’ poses, and the result is a deeply felt exploration of grief, redemption, and the human heart. Spanning cultures and continents, foggy mornings on the Arans and hazy memories of the States, Allison Cundiff's debut novel probes the eternal riddle of home, the enduring allure of hope.”

-Jeffrey Zuckerman

“Allison Cundiff's poems tell deeply felt stories with fierce and fragile language that interweaves beauty and sadness and raw nerves.

Continuing the theme of motherhood, "Westhampton Lake" takes a story of a turtle found out of water to a devastating emotional conclusion.

City and country are both characters in this book as well, in poems such as "Early Summer Clay Pigeons" about longing and love that may be destined for loss but must be experienced nonetheless. Elsewhere, a poem describes a lover as "suddenly no longer simply not here," which says much by saying little.

These poems are wholly individual, but everyone should find something familiar and valuable in their cello music, their broken glass, or their smells of coffee, oranges, and people.”

-Steve Schroeder

“Clever, skillful imagery and storytelling throughout. The poet’s most notable and original trait is passive imagery: describing seemingly inactive/insignificant details from a different angle, giving them a virility of tone (i.e. the young girl “sitting hard” against the wood of her “punishment chair” in Catholic school).

This style choice mirrors the intellectual introversion of the speaker’s character as she strives to legitimize her irregularity with the world. Through certain recurring motifs and symbols, the work’s female hero-model gains agency by appreciating the 'missed details’ of life’s grand design. In this work, Ms. Cundiff has the last word.”

-Chris Stout

“In and with these poems, Cundiff and Schreiner offer us, and one another, a sheltered exquisite conversation that encompasses the tangled narrative of love and other things less easy to announce or acknowledge. It catches and attaches in a fractal, organic way, melancholy and exultant, factual and defiant, gravid from the exploration of the secrets of the dark body, private and intimate and universal. You could peer through the window, but the vine-covered door is neither locked nor unduly difficult to find. I recommend that you walk in, pour some wine, and straightforwardly celebrate.”

-Susan T. Adams

Snapshop is a collection of poems detailing the body moving through space, interacting with animal and insect, intimacy and trauma. The collection observes conflict and collision in the macabre of the natural world. The external and the personal are sister themes, and ask, like the honeybee, which sisters do we defend? Who do we turn on? And how do we know the difference? These poems explore looking up instead of around, sitting with terror and not turning away. They ask when to let someone inside of your body and when to let go of other bodies. Each poem is a story of longing or hate, considering who each of us is when the pollen of others sticks to our skin, who we will unbolt the door to let in, who we will bolt the door to keep out.