Burt, Stephanie: We Are Mermaids

Graywolf Press, paperback Publication Date: October 4th, 2022 Publisher Marketing: Effusive new poems by Stephanie Burt, "perhaps our greatest poet of having yet more to say" (Boston Review) Stephanie Burt's poems in We Are Mermaids are never just one thing. Instead, they revel in their multiplicity, their interconnectedness, their secret powers to become much more than they at first seem. In these poems, punctuation marks make arguments for their utility and their rights to exist. Frozen isn't simply another Disney animated musical but "the Most Trans Movie Ever." Mermaids, werewolves, and superheroes don't just fret over divided natures and secret identities, but celebrate their wholeness, their unique abilities, and their erotic potential. Flowers in this collection bloom into exactly what they are meant to be--revealing themselves, like bleeding hearts, beyond their given names. With humor and insight, Burt's poems have always cherished and examined the things of this world, both r