I imagine the average person’s introductions to poetry involved phrases like, I don’t understand! What does it mean?! And eventually, much later in life, landing on, It’s so pretentious! A fair ass…

The Leaving Roomdoesn’t start with much — a girl in a room talking to herself. But I knew, from interviewingAmber McBrideaboutGone Wolf, to trust that nothing was necessarily as it seemed.