With a lyricism that is both delicate and painful, Rough Ground explores the devastating consequences of trauma on our ability to speak about the world. Based upon Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Rough Ground distills philosophical speculation to poetic text, enacting an utterance almost beyond speech. While the philosopher concludes that which we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence,\" the poems writ on \"rough ground\" enact a portentous silence, mapping a path between word and world.\""Alix Anne Shaw is the author of three full-length poetry collections: Rough Ground (Etruscan 2018), Dido in Winter (Persea 2014), and Undertow (Persea 2007), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize. Her poems and reviews have appeared in journals including Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Harvard Review, Black Warrior Review, and New American Writing. She is also a visual artist. Her sculpture, writing, and performance-based work can be viewed online at www. anneshaw. org and anneshaw. carbonmade. com. | Rough Ground, Paperback | Indigo Chapters