Taking its title from Ralph Waldo Emerson's injunction, "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string," Annie Lighthart's first collection of poems lives up to the complexities of that sound, that difficult music of living. Written with a mature lyricism, these poems weave the thread of song through destruction and doubt, through quiet rooms and resilient hours. When reading Iron String, we awaken to our own lives, into a world that is wider, deeper, and more dangerously beautiful than we realized before.