Fierce Elegy

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

Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize

Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award

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 also--as it has been for centuries--a work of love. "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

Peter Gizzi is the author of many collections of poetry, including Now It's Dark (2020), Archeophonics (2016), a finalist for the National Book Award, Threshold Songs (2011), and In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987-2011 (2014), a finalist for the LA Times Book Award. He has also published several limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books. Marjorie Perloff has called him "a master of the mot juste and of sound structure;" Robert Creeley, "one of the most exceptional poets of his generation." Adrienne Rich has said "his disturbing lyricism is like no other;" and John Ashbery thought him "the most exciting new poet to come along in quite a while." He lives in Holyoke, MA.