Other Edens captures the heartache that arises from hope's repeated failures. The poems explore how grief (re)shapes belief and how death (re)shapes memory. Readers of Frank Stanford's poetry might find a kinship between his and Bowen's depictions of menace in the world, particularly in the rural South, where violence patiently waits to be useful to someone. Bowen's poems are stark and terse, eschewing any poetic impulses to repaint the world as anything but a demoralizing series of crushing disappointments.