Five-Paragraph Essay on the Body-Mind Problem

0,An inventive, poignant and witty collection that speaks to the intricacies of love, both domestic and wildWinner of the 2024 Cardinal Poetry Prize and Finalist for the 2025 New England Book Award in PoetryFinalist for a New England Book AwardFive-Paragraph Essay on the Body-Mind Problem is the inaugural winner of the Cardinal Poetry Prize, selected by renowned poet Robert Pinsky. In free verse and invented poetic forms, Rachel Trousdale explores how the interplay between the mind and body illuminates our most important relationships, whether with other humans, wild spaces, or works of art. Inhabited by crows, yetis, coral reefs, and aliens, these poems playfully examine the intensity and conflict of romantic love; the entropic joys of parenthood; illness and grief; and the ways our physical loves and intangible losses teach us responsibility to the world around us. [Sample Poem]Love Poem With Dereliction of DutyIt's true--I like you more than I likethe Marquis de Sade; God thatmid-April afternoon in 1995, when I said, let's take a walkand you said sure and we circledthe New Haven Green sayingwho the hell knows whatbecause if we had seenall this falling in love stuff coming, wewould have paid more attention;I just know it took two hours, past the churches and the porn shopand over to the cemetery with allthose skull-topped slabs leaningmemorially against the brownstone wall;round and round we went like marblesdodging the traps in a gameof labyrinth; and finally backto campus through that big stone gatewhich we entered just as the profof the philosophy class I was skippingcame out and I said oh the painthe pain I can't take it any moreand doubled up laughing