Wesleyan University Press, paperback
Publication Date: March 25, 2025
Publisher Marketing: An inventive, poignant and witty collection that speaks to the intricacies of love, both domestic and wild
Winner of the 2024 Cardinal Poetry Prize and Finalist for the 2025 New England Book Award in Poetry
Finalist for a New England Book Award
Five-Paragraph Essay on the Body-Mind Problem is the inaugural winner of the Cardinal Poetry Prize, selected by renowned poet Robert Pinsky. In free verse and invented poetic forms, Rachel Trousdale explores how the interplay between the mind and body illuminates our most important relationships, whether with other humans, wild spaces, or works of art. Inhabited by crows, yetis, coral reefs, and aliens, these poems playfully examine the intensity and conflict of romantic love; the entropic joys of parenthood; illness and grief; and the ways our physical loves and intangible losses teach us responsibility to the world around us.
