Cate Marvin's brilliant fourth poetry collection exists just outside of calamity. Set between the violent realm of patriarchy and the bright otherworld of female agency and survival, these are poems of pointed humor and quick intellect, radical exposure, and (re)vision. At Marvin's table, the knife of domesticity becomes a threat, sharpened and shined.
“Fragment of the Head of a Queen makes it clear why Cate Marvin is becoming one of our essential poets.” —Rodney Jones
Cate Marvin’s new poems, their wrought music, unblinking focus, and hard-edged sensuality, are wreathed with an entirely different silence than her first collection. The brokenness and loss of the fragmented queen—seeming to rise up through centuries—is their tutelary spirit.
This groundbreaking anthology offers a broad and representative introduction to some of the most exciting, fresh voices on the contemporary poetry landscape by gathering together generous selections from the work of 85 younger American poets. The poets selected were born after 1960, published their first book within the last 10 years, and have no more than three books published. Some are the recipients of numerous awards, while others, who are making their first appearance, are quickly making significant contributions to twenty-first-century poetry. The poets include Rick Barot, Joshua Beckman, David Berman, Nick Flynn, Matthea Harvey, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, James Kimbrell, D.A. Powell, Spencer Reece, Matthew Rohrer, Rebecca Wolff, Kevin Young, Matthew Zapruder, Andrew Zawacki, and many others. Co-Edited by Cate Marvin.
The speakers of Oracle occupy the outer-borough cityscape of New York’s Staten Island, moving through worlds glittering with refuse and peopled by ghosts. Cate Marvin’s haunting, passionate poems explore themes of loss, the vulnerability of womanhood in a world hostile to it, and the fraught, strangely compelling landscape of adolescence.
