Anyone who has struggled through hard times, and come out of them both damaged and healed, will recognize and treasure these direct, assured, unadorned, yet musical poems. In them, family, and familiar struggles (to live and love with integrity) are totally real, and also thrillingly interpermeated with dream-like events that seem completely real and convincing. A bird alights on the foot of a corpse; Death itself sits on the couch, holding a glass, awaiting “our arrival.” The poems of Because I Did Not Die are full of everyday life, true mortal terror, deep lament, and the great hope that is survival itself, the ability to live through difficulty and confusion, and to speak clearly, lyrically, and for all of us.

— Matthew Zapruder, author of Sun Bear

Gutsy, irreverent, and tender, Nicole Santalucia is a poet of risk. In Because I Did Not Die, she peels away the protective layers behind which she could hide, and, instead, shows us the vulnerable person she is. Unflinchingly, she reveals all her flaws and failures, and through these courageous poems we are drawn into the life she has lived populated by the people she has known and loved. This book is filled with unexpected moments of humor and irony interspersed with powerful, heartfelt poems. Santalucia is an amazing poet with an incredibly strong and recognizable voice.

— Maria Mazziotti Gillan, author of The Girls in Chartreuse Jackets

In the world of Nicole Santaucia's Because I Didn't Die, even the living are full of ghosts—gliding back and forth between the crumbling real world and sharp flashes of the surreal. These powerful poems are always moving, and often painful to watch—to watch pieces of people falling off. But Santalucia's a brilliant guide, for hers is a voice that has returned from the dead—a voice that knows there's no escape from the prison of fallible human form. In her hands, the world is of possibilities, forgiveness, humor and love.

— Jennifer L. Knox, author of The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway