"Robin Ekiss’s haunting first book is replete with miniatures, with dolls and toys, with magic acts and mysterious maternal passageways. She treads the impassable route back to childhood ('the past is another country') and finds that 'the pastness of the past/isn’t trapped in glass.' It’s magical to find a first book that is, as Robert Frost put it, 'play for mortal stakes.'"
—Edward Hirsch, author of Special Orders

"These darkly beautiful poems are unswerving in their search for a place where the inner and outer world edit one another. Robin Ekiss writes with force and elegance. The content is always there; the craft is never sacrificed. The combination makes this book a superb debut."
—Eavan Boland, author of New Collected Poems

"Charmed by the curious, the miniature, and the grotesque, Robin Ekiss understands where such fascinations lead. 'In the nautilus,' she writes, 'each turn of light/ leads into darkness . . .' And into the dire complexities of feeling, recorded here with subtle formal intelligence and a deft control of tone that leads this poet's readers to remember that even dark enchantments are enchantments still."
—Mark Doty, author of Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems

"This first book of poetry takes multiple chances. The poems offer clarity and strength in their exposure of the most private emotions. However, it is the poet’s ability to weave vivid, complex images that thrusts them forward, making The Mansion of Happiness a memorable debut that suggests an equally memorable future."
—The Rumpus

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