Elizabeth Robinson, The One Big Secret

The six poems in Elizabeth Robinson's new series meditate on the violence of the "briefly animate" body taken and taken apart. With their stripped-down line and chilling delivery, these are haunting poems.


An excerpt from "Creature"


The afterlife is its own dunce,

furred, stupid with bewilderment So

who did it--from or to us--

mixing sebum and

grime into a paste: briefly animate The

ground beneath us is slippery with it, cruel and

puling runt So life goes



ELIZABETH ROBINSON is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently Apostrophe from Apogee Press, and Under That Silky Roof, from Burning Deck Press. She lives in Colorado and co-edits 26 Magazine, EtherDome chapbooks, and Instance Press.