In her debut poetry collection, The Heart Room, poet and nurse Libby Kurz explores the literal heart as a metaphor for the complex realities of love and relationships. Like a body exposed on a surgery table, Kurz dissects the dueling forces of life and death, beauty and suffering, which are simultaneously flowing through the vessels of our own human experience. How do we handle an existence full of so much uncertainty? "Like cupping a bird in your hands," each poem is an invitation to delicately hold the mysteries and paradoxes of our own humanity. The poems "How to Handle a Heart" and "Transplant" winners in the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Prize.