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White Lily |
eBook Coming Soon
A poetic love note to Louise Glück and Laurie Anderson.
Why are my problems / always the worst? // And why / because I wrote that / do you think I don’t believe it?
White Lily is John Emil Vincent’s love note to Louise Glück and Laurie Anderson, two artists inspired and bedevilled by white lilies.
Under their spell the poet dives into parable, fable, received wisdom, compact discs, and ruined utopias like a gleeful truant child. The white lily is ever present - its meanings, messages, and seductive scent. The collection begins with a meditation on Anderson’s song “White Lily” and its treatment of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s fourteen-hour film Berlin Alexanderplatz. It goes on to ponder whether, if we take them in earnest, our mistakes come to serve as the surest sign of seriousness.
Throughout, Vincent’s poems trouble what’s exact and exacting, always with the white lily as companion, a promise of rebirth delivered in funeral tones.
White Lily is John Emil Vincent’s love note to Louise Glück and Laurie Anderson, two artists inspired and bedevilled by white lilies.
Under their spell the poet dives into parable, fable, received wisdom, compact discs, and ruined utopias like a gleeful truant child. The white lily is ever present - its meanings, messages, and seductive scent. The collection begins with a meditation on Anderson’s song “White Lily” and its treatment of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s fourteen-hour film Berlin Alexanderplatz. It goes on to ponder whether, if we take them in earnest, our mistakes come to serve as the surest sign of seriousness.
Throughout, Vincent’s poems trouble what’s exact and exacting, always with the white lily as companion, a promise of rebirth delivered in funeral tones.
Details
Part of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series (number 89 in series)
104 Pages, 5 x 7.5
ISBN 9780228023777
April 2025
Formats: Paperback, eBook
“White Lily is like nothing else I know in contemporary poetry. It ranges without effort from quietly chilling parables to laugh-out-loud invective, from fleet-footed meta-poetic games to sudden, crushing depths, from serial elegy to one poem that’s a single emoji. The titles alone are a poetic pleasure. Readers of Vincent’s previous work will recognize his unmatchable wit, his genius for making huge leaps in small increments, his ability to re-see well-worn metaphoric terrain completely afresh, like it’s no big deal – but even given that, I think this is his best book yet.” Chris Nealon, author of The Shore
John Emil Vincent is the author of several books including The Decline and Fall of the Chatty Empire, Bitter in the Belly, and Ganymede’s Dog. He lives in Montreal.
