Fierce Elegy

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