In language at once candid and layered, calm and devastating, terrifying and gorgeous, the poems in Allegra Wong's first collection, A PURE BEAD, cut deep to the heart, reveal small and piercing dramas of human joy and suffering as if through a diorama's eye-hole. These vivid poem-worlds expand emotionally and intellectually; give off shocks; attract, disturb, unsettle, and finally allow a tender and profound beauty to emerge. Here is nothing less than the complex, psychologically accurate world of humankind. Put your eye to these dioramas: you won't be able to stop looking. By rendering humans in extremis, the poems in Allegra Wong's A PURE BEAD find out the human heart in all its contradictory nature. In every poem, there are images that stop your breath, drop as if into still water, and form circles that spread wide, reach far. A PURE BEAD is a pure gift to the reader: stunning language and masterful craft in the service of human truths. --Joan Houlihan These poems, by turns (and sometimes simultaneously) horrifying and extraordinarily tender, make a powerful case for the way elegant structure, haunting images, and vivid, beautifully controlled language can transform even the most appalling subject matter into compelling and unforgettable art. At its sweetest and most touching, Allegra Wong's A PURE BEAD never lapses into sentimentality; and even at its most disturbing, it's a joy to read. --Lloyd Schwartz