Fierce Elegy

Summary

Written in the aftermath of personal loss, this sequence holds grief alongside a minutely observed natural world, finding in small phenomena—light on a surface, the behaviour of birds—a way to keep company with the dead without being consumed by mourning. Gizzi's voice is characteristically American in its range of reference and its willingness to move between high seriousness and everyday speech, and the poems are, as the judges noted, fully alive in spirit even as they dwell in loss. The collection represents a significant recognition of contemporary American poetry by a historically British-focused prize.