spinning side kick book cover

Spinning Side Kick

A hard-knuckled look at the other half

These lively poems mix a girl-about-town cockiness with an all-too-rare emotional honesty about men, love, and relationships. Whether the subject is a one-man chimney demolition, the lifelong fidelity of seahorses, a lover at war in Afghanistan, or a kickboxing match, Lahey confronts the enduring disconnect between the sexes in a language that is slangy and quick, punctuated with jabs. She eyes those moments—in a day, in a life—when the normal clues we rely on disappear, shifting the line between domesticity and danger. In Spinning Side Kick, a talented poet returns with sharper aim.

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GLIMPSES

Excerpts from the book

'The Foe' and 'Jab'

The first two rounds of the kickboxing match that opens the collection.

Time and Place

Has to do with home and connection and distance—and the aftermath of collective tragedy.

Ziplock Baggie of Seahorse Specimens

Part of a longer sequence called ‘Care Package for a Combat Engineer’, and appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2012.