Bad judgment

In her second collection of poems, Bad Judgment, Cathleen Calbert considers not only what it means to be human but also how the individual is signified by gender, race, cultural privilege, and sexual orientation. In poems that balance realistic and surrealistic narratives, irony and sentiment, Calbert records the journey of a woman reeling from a number of losses - her youth, the death of a close friend, religious faith - as she moves toward love and marriage.