Hover

Poetry. Winner of the Patricia Bibby First Book Prize, 2013, judged by Ralph Angel. "Erin Malone writes poems of separation and deep longing for the Other—brother, son, husband, yes—but most importantly, the dislocated self. Tied by the binds of convention, this bound self twists against the ropes around her wrists, not so much to free herself, but to better feel the burns they make there when she does. In careful (read: care- filled) scalpel-precise lines, we hear a voice compelled to speak out in what Allan Grossman calls 'the language of last resort.' Reader, this is just the beginning."—Kary Wayson

"I simply love Erin Malone's HOVER—its perfection of phrase, its sheer lucidity, its open heart. There are real hauntings and anxieties here, often of the most excruciating, heart-wrenching variety, but somehow the book leaves me in the mood of a crisp, clear morning on which one feels amazed to be alive. 'It's taken me this long to become human,' Malone writes; taken together, the poems in HOVER convey that earned, admirable sense of humanness, in language that shines."—Maggie Nelson

"Erin Malone's poems drop flares into the dark sea of new motherhood, illuminating the silvered leap of a mind mid-flight, a mind at times unmade: the mind of making. Wildly precise and sharply beautiful, these poems detonate inside the most unlikely containers: studies of dead languages, incandescent bulbs, fables, terrariums, 'an alphabet of crows.' Subterranean, aerial, quick-turning and generous, the line she casts is a thrilling one to catch hold of."—Megan Snyder-Camp

"The poems in HOVER deftly explore the worlds of loss and personal dislocation. Malone's principal technique is compression, and the music that results from her carefully-considered, chiseled lines is crystalline. HOVER is a rewarding, emotionally resonant debut collection."—Linda Bierds