In Marjorie Thomsen's debut poetry collection, PRETTY THINGS PLEASE, she becomes enamored with unearthing what sustains and what haunts us. She makes a request: Name all that I cannot. In these poems, desire, ache, and awe take on unexpected variations--the long-dead lovers of Pompeii feed each other olives, a poisonous berry laments Virginia Woolf 's choice of the river, and mussels bear witness to grief not being carried out to sea. Attending to the sensuality of language, Thomsen probes the wild domain of both the real and the surreal.