Gizzi, Peter: Fierce Elegy

Wesleyan University Press, paperback Publication Date: August 8, 2023 Publisher Marketing: 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 In Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection, we find, in the poet's words, 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. One of our foremost practitioners of the lyric, Gizzi here extends his mastery of the form. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but also—as it has been for centuries—a mode of love poetry as well. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperature—the time & details of the world—meaning the space(s