Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also - as it has been for centuries - a work of love

 

In Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection, we find, in the poet's words, 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. One of our foremost practitioners of the lyric, Gizzi here extends his mastery of the form. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but also - as it has been for centuries - a mode of love poetry as well. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperature - the time & details of the world - meaning the space(s) in which we live - defining 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