Determinant

“These nineteen supple poems have both a strong sense of unity and a wide spectrum of forms, themes, and moods. Virtuosic writing combines with jagged feeling, and the end result is engaging, dramatic, and unpredictable.”—Henri Cole“These poems have a strong voice and a bold reach: they turn outwards, finding big subjects and solid narratives. They seek to make a world: and then they persuade the reader to live in it.”—Eavan Boland“Determinant is a strong, assured collection that begins with our planet Earth and ends with an egg. This poetic echoing of subjects and objects is indicative of Alex Fabrizio’s range: these poems guide us to a vantage point from which wonder contracts and expands without a diminishing of its essence. Her speakers are calmly certain of uncertainty. Let this collection trouble what one might assume about the explanatory connotation of the title—the poems have little concern for the didacticism of cause and embrace the effects of the world on the ambiguous lyric self. They encourage a reintegration of the ‘I’ with that world, a ‘turning returning’ to it. They give the reader that gift.”—Lo Kwa Mei-en