To experience Toti O’Brien’sIn Her Termsis to enter into the physical and mental space of someone else’s reality, to feel what it is to be that person, the good and the bad. This collection is about many things, but much of it comes down to what it means to be a human being today. Much of that is made explicit by the way she relates to the physical world within her body. We are allowed to see both the pleasures and pains of staying alive. Equally, she invites us into the vastness of her intellectual and emotional world as she discusses what it means to be a multilingual artist.In Her Termsis an inside, often gritty, often exuberant look at what it means to live the life that she has lived.

     Part of what drew me into her collection is the way that O’Brien allows me to…