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
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 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