Teeth Have a Hardness Scale of 5

The poems in Teeth Have a Hardness Scale of 5 use found language drawn from the Simon and Sue Lilly’s Essential Guide to Crystals to haze the boundary between the animate, social world of humans and the inanimate insinuation of rock. Scientific discourse splits the lyric presence of these poems, and chisels experience with percussive tools meant for other types of hardiness. This poetry blushes, then obtains crystal-like transparency. These poems refract light. [publisher's note]