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Reviews of World as Dictionary Never self-pitying, at times wryly ironic, these poems insist that, while life is often tragic, we can understand it through contemplation and, more important, survive, with something reborn in the cycle. . . . The title poem encapsulates what animates so much of this elegant collection. The narrator’s young daughter’s word for “open” becomes a talisman. “Ope, ope, ope . . .” the child says, and Kercheval responds, “We live in hope. / My daughter claps her hands.” —Alison Townsend, Women’s Review of Books