WINNER OF THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE 2024
The powerful new collection from legendary American poet Peter Gizzi, reckoning with the transformative power of elegy through poems of lament and love
‘I am awestruck, dumbfounded … a masterwork’ Ocean Vuong
''Transcendent ... He identifies the thing we''re all searching for'' The New Yorker
In Fierce Elegy, Peter Gizzi contends with a decade of grief, and learns to transform a broken heart into new strength. These are poems of loss; of love; of the strangeness of being a self amid the fury of the world; and of our ongoing closeness with the dead. They are soaring yet grounded, vulnerable and brave. Ears attuned, grip assured. Mind free.