"Bendall lets loose unidentifiable viruses in the aesthetic world of posed appearances: poetry, ballet, sculpture, painting, and dressing well. She weighs what stands forth with what is withheld. In her world, being is at once more and less than it seems. Such ontological queasiness is, of course, up to date; it's Djuna Barnes, it's Colette, made current."  --Calvin Bedient in Poetry

"There is such a sweet eroticism to Dark Summerthat only with a start does a reader realize that some of these lines are so sharp they have already drawn blood. In fact, there is a kind of motif of sharp edges, of needle pointedness--like dangerous furniture scattered throughout the book, inviting and threatening simultaneously. But there are also moments ('the milk wings / of the owl--its strange, aristocratic / hovering') which have such reassuring accuracy that we feel ourselves in the hands of mastery, and of mysterious power."  --Bin Ramke

Molly Bendall was born in Richmond, Virginia. Her first book of poems, After Estrangement, won the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize in 1992.

She has received the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry, the Lynda Hull Poetry Award from Denver Quarterly, and two Pushcart Prizes.

She currently teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Venice, California.