Death Styles

By Joyelle McSweeney

A record of daily bewilderments and accidental concessions to hope after a momentous loss.

In this follow-up to her award-winning collection, Toxicon and Arachne, Joyelle McSweeney proposes a link between style and survival, even in the gravest of circumstances. Setting herself the task of writing a poem a day and accepting a single icon as her starting point, however unlikely—River Phoenix, Mary Magdalene, a backyard skunk—McSweeney follows each inspiration to the point of exhaustion and makes it through each difficult day.  In frank, mesmeric lyrics, Death Styles navigates the opposing forces of survival and grief, finding a way to press against death’s interface, to step the wrong way out of the grave.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nightboat Books
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781643622293

Joyelle McSweeney

Joyelle McSweeney is the author of ten books of poems, fiction, drama and essays, and is the co-founder of the international press, Action Books.

Book preview

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