Fierce Elegy

Peter Gizzi has said that "the elegy is a mode that can transform a broken heart in a fierce world into a fierce heart in a broken world." For Gizzi, ferocity can be reimagined as vulnerability, bravery and discovery, a braiding of emotional and otherworldly depth, "a holding open." In Gizzi's voice joy and sorrow make a complex ecosystem. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but alsoas it has been for centuriesa work of love. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperaturethe time & details of the worldmeaning the space(s) in which we livedefining love in this way. Writing along the edge. A way of writing about hope."

[sample poem]

Creely Song
all that is lovely
in words, even
if gone to pieces
all that is lovely
gone, all of it
for love and
autobiography
as if I were
writing this
hello, listen
the plan is
the body and
all of it for love
now in pieces
all that is lovely
echoes still
in life & death
still memory
gardens open
onto windows
lovely, the charm
that mirrors
all that was, all
that is, lovely
in a song

Dettagli