Fierce Elegy

8,Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also--as it has been for centuries--a work of loveWinner of the T.S. Eliot Prize Winner of the Massachusetts Book AwardPeter 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 thishello, 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