Dana Littlepage Smith is the author of three collections of poetry, the first published by Louisiana University Press and second and third, Black Elk Dances for Queen Victoria and The Skin of Mercy, by Cinnamon Press. Widely anthologised and published in small press magazines, Dana lives in Devon where she worked as a teacher until recently.This sequence takes the challenging subject of breast cancer, and, while regarding it with the appropriate seriousness, also treats it with an inventiveness and wit that asks telling questions about the cultural meanings that breasts have acquired, as in 'My Breasts and I Consider Elizabeth 1' which deploys early modern language to suggest the longevity of the concerns which these poems raise, the 'Sweet mutability' to which bodily existence is subject.Assured, intelligent and engaging, this is important writing leavened with innovation.