Meekling Press, paperback
Illustrated by: Jeff Peterson
Publication Date: April 1, 2025
Publisher Marketing: In the tradition of Montaigne's Essais and Anne Carson's Short Talks, MC Hyland's poem-essays weave together the conceptual and the material, leaving a trace of thought-in-flight. Originating from a moment (pre- and mid-pandemic) when Hyland taught canonical British literature as a contingent university worker, the essays in The Dead and the Living and the Bridge take up the topics of grief, gender, art materials, capitalism, and close reading. "What I loved," Hyland writes, "was the dead and the living and the bridge my voice sometimes made between the two." This voice casts spells to summon clarity against institutional failures and personal and global losses, while placing thinking in its proper context: conversation, shared worldbuilding, and a love that touches both the living and the dead.
