Cover & Interior Design: Alban Fischer
Paperback, 104 pages
September 19, 2018, ISBN 978-1-936919-62-8
About Emily O'Neill
Emily O'Neill teaches writing and tends bar in Cambridge, MA. Her second poetry collection, a falling knife has no handle, was released with YesYes Books in fall of 2018 and was one of Publishers Weekly's ten most anticipated poetry titles of the season. It was also longlisted for the Julie Suk Award from Jacar Press. Her debut poetry collection, Pelican, was the inaugural winner of YesYes Books' Pamet River Prize for women and genderqueer writers, as well as the winner of the 2016 Devil's Kitchen Reading Series in Poetry. O'Neill is also the author of five chapbooks, most recently You Can’t Pick Your Genre (2nd edition Big Lucks, 2019). Her recent poems, stories, and essays have appeared in The Best Indie Lit New England Anthology, Cutbank, Catapult, Redivider, Salt Hill, and Washington Square, among many others. She holds a degree in the synesthesia of storytelling from Hampshire College.
a falling knife has no handle by Emily O'Neill
Longlist, Julie Suk Award, 2018
Named one of the "Top 10" poetry releases for Fall 2018 by Publisher's Weekly
About a falling knife has no handle
a falling knife has no handle is a love letter to indulgence, both of the palate and the heart. The poems collected here offer a reluctant romantic’s guide to trusting that what’s on the menu will be enough. They ask how much time it takes to earn the comfort of food and companionship, how do we portion what we want, and who will be waiting for us at the table when the meal is finally garnished and ready to serve. Whether rich or rustic, each piece, every morsel is available for study down to its smallest component and savored for the way it is layered. No cocktail goes un-drunk, no dish left unconquered. These poems ask what we most want to taste and help us find our way back to that perfect plate. Find here the body and all it begs of us: hunger / thirst / decadence / deprivation / witness / retreat / relief. Where there is love, there waits a feast.
Reviews & Interviews
Review by Margaryta Golovchenko at The Coil Magazine
Interview by Lauren R. Korn at The Adroit Journal
