A collection of collage poems made from the memoirs, letters and diaries of Martha Graham, Anaïs Nin, Marguerite Duras, Billie Holiday and Diane Arbus. Photographs trace their paths through cafes, hotels, bars and museums of the cities in which their lives played out: Paris, London and New York. “Romanticism,” wrote Anaïs Nin, “was an obsession with the far in place of the near… the unattainable in place of the attainable.” “Catherine Corman has recast the words of these five bold women into vital, independent poems, and in so doing, she has given their voices new energy and a new, personal clarity. These verses, by turns wistful, severe, wry, generous, bitter, resolute, and compassionate, are, alongside Corman's luminous photographs, a pleasure to read.” —Lydia Davis