Foxglovewise: Poems

Ange Mlinko, whose poetry is "irresistible" (Los Angeles Review of Books), opens our perception of other lives, or lives unlived.

Foxglovewise is, at its core, a response to the singular experience of the loss of one's parents. It begins at an Eastern Orthodox Epiphany ritual in Florida and ends in a cemetery in Los Angeles. Yet, as with Ange Mlinko's other books of poetry, the collection uses geography as a trope for the ways in which we try to map out our lives and make them legible, even as poetry, music, and paintings suggest that much of what happens, or matters, to us is "not on the maps" (not to mention "the apps"). Whether it's Europa borne over the waves, or gravestones bearing aliases rather than birth names, or books bequeathed to us by relatives in languages we can't read, we live "up in the air" or "on the wing" and not in fixed coordinates.

Mlinko's poetry is suffused with wit, erudition, beauty, and boundless energy. As Declan Ryan wrote of her work in The Times Literary Supplement, "A reader could be merely dazzled by all this surface stylishness . . . but then they would miss the heart beneath it all." Foxglovewise is a direct line to the author's heart.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 01/28/2025
ISBN: 9780374613174
Pages: 112
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.25h x 5.38w x 1.00d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 11/18/2024