Malone, Erin: Hover

Hover by Erin Malone (Tebot Bach, paperback)

Publication Date: March 3, 2015

Publisher Marketing: Poetry. Winner of the Patricia Bibby First Book Prize, 2013, judged by Ralph Angel. "Erin Malone writes poems of separation and deep longing for the Other—brother, son, husband, yes—but most importantly, the dislocated self. Tied by the binds of convention, this bound self twists against the ropes around her wrists, not so much to free herself, but to better feel the burns they make there when she does. In careful (read: care-filled) scalpel-precise lines, we hear a voice compelled to speak out in what Allan Grossman calls 'the language of last resort.' Reader, this is just the beginning."—Kary Wayson

"I simply love Erin Malone's HOVER—its perfection of phrase, its sheer lucidity, its open heart. There are real hauntings and anxieties here, often of the most excruciating, heart-wrenching variety, but somehow the book leaves me in the mood of a crisp, clear morning on which one feels amazed to be alive. 'It's taken me this long to become human,' Malone writes; taken together, the poems in HOVER convey that earned, admirable sense of humanness, in language that shines."—Maggie Nelson