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I dare you to enter Kara Dorris’ brutal and astounding HitBox, where we begin “curled up, practicing crash / positions, hearts cradled by claws & wings.” Part fairytale, part video game, part self-defense manual, these poems plumb the limits of empathy, the inextricability of pain and healing, and the relentlessness of violence. “You have to hold on & ride, arrive / on the other side despite the hits.” Dorris deftly shows us how—how to aim, let go, and “brace for the breaking” in a world where a princess needs an “army knife, a Glock, & some duct tape” just in case the rescue turns assault.

—Stephanie Heit, author of Psych Murders

In Hit Box, Kara Dorris is an open-hearted questioner invested in examining the violent, even absurd elements of our world that most of us readily accept. She highlights our eagerness to crack open piñatas designed as lovable creatures, place bets on delicate racehorses, and play video games that instruct us to “know where to hit” so that we can receive the “reward” of the damsel in distress. But rather than reside in the bitterness of judgment, her questioning inspires a hope for humanity to be more thoughtfully curious. At the core of this collection is a genuine care for others that’s laced with optimism and presented with delightful surrealism. The collection never denies the world its evil or shies away from life’s darkness—even its title is a reference to damage—and yet when Dorris asks us, “Can we be more than survivalists?,” we are comforted that the answer is always yes.

—Lauren Berry, author of The Lifting Dress and The Rented Altar

“When will we learn / what we starve always becomes claw / & teeth & snarl?” In Kara Dorris’ HitBox, bestial commingles with human, darkness with light, ancient with contemporary, mythologies with raw truths. Within, ghost voices of chafing women hum throughout time, “I wanted to be more than a plot point, a reward, a lady- / bug to admire & wheel over & crush.” Their narratives, amidst the magical and mundane, reveal profound truths about grief, simultaneously possessing the primal howls of feminine defiance and rage. Approach this collection with your spirit ready to grieve, wonder, survive, and heal.

—Anne Champion, author of The Good Girl is Always a Ghost