Reassurance in Negative Space

Subtitle
Poems

Winner of the 2013 Southeast Reviews Gearhart Poetry Prize, Elizabyth A. Hiscox's "Reassurance in Negative Space" is a debut collection with the seasoned deftness of a master in its keen intelligence, wit, innovative diction, unflinching handling of loss and grief, and deep lyricism. Hiscox muses with revelatory insights on such wide-ranging topics as multifarious netsuke, nuclear fallout, artichokes “coming into new brilliance,” the DMV line, the Zen of “the sublime [that] can spring from small things.” By turns ecstatic and somber, profane and sacred, wise and whimsical, Hiscox proves she is a poet of the first order with this memorable collection.

Bio

Also the author of "Inventory From a One-Hour Room," Elizabyth A. Hiscox earned a Master in Fine Arts in creative writing from Arizona State University in 2006. She has taught writing in England, the Czech Republic and Spain and currently instructs at Western State Colorado University, where she is founding director of the Contemporary Writer Series.

Praise for this book

In Elizabyth Hiscox's impressive debut collection, there are poems about art and loss and ecology, reindeer moss and netsuke, the precariousness of 1950s high-heeled bedroom slippers. Her poems are tightly, urgently made. Hers is a poetry held together by ingenious double meanings and wordplay, twinnings and twinings, paradox, subtle jokes and puns, fierce and delicate ironies, a rigorous intelligence and a vigor of spirit so charged and fluent that whatever she puts before us takes on resonance and import.

Nancy Eimers Author of "Oz"

There is throughout this volume a deep and humane lyric wisdom, an almost fatalistically brilliant humor. ... Here is a debut collection bold enough to cast an eye on Truth in poems that are both narrative (storied) and innovative, necessary poetry.

Cynthia Hogue Author of "In June the Labyrinth"