Cardinaux, Eliot: On the Long Blue Night

Dos Madres Press, paperback

Publication Date: August 10, 2023

Publisher Marketing: In ON THE LONG BLUE NIGHT, Eliot Cardinaux's debut poetry collection, language is a ruined landscape through which the estranged voice of the poem threads a narrow way. As Patrick Pritchett writes, "this is poetry written at the frayed edge of history, ushered by the tutelary spirits of Celan and Mandlestam, full of longing and a deep listening to the silence." "In Eliot Cardinaux's unsettling and intimate debut collection, 'the lateword' illuminates a landscape of ruins that is still redeemable by the yearning of logos, its flickering presence marking a way forward for the poem in a time when poetry has found itself held hostage by sociological sermonizing, empty positivism, and puritanical grievances. 'Won't you take what is given, / pain in the branches / ringing the gavel, / cradled like a lamb,' asks the poem. Bright with spiritual darkness, this is poetry written at the frayed edge of history, ushered by the tutelary spirits of Celan and Mandlestam, full of longing and a deep listening to the silence."--Patrick Pritchett Poetry.