The body is a poem we are writing with every breath, says Townley, who in her dual life has taught yoga for decades. Albert Goldbarth calls Rewriting the Body "affectingly emotional even as it's formally risky in a very smart way." Helen Houghton of the Academy says, "I don't know of anything else like this--a profound meditation, exhilarating to read, extraordinarily beautiful." H. L. Hix says, "Her poems don't feel written on the reader's body, they feel written within it." Excerpt from the title poem Breath       everything is riding on it               under the door winter slides its white envelope       past due past due               as we move from bed to chair and room to room       our lives                sighing in the cedars strung on backroads to this place               where we go in and out breath by breath       gravel and ice               underfoot       Orion overhead