Infanta

Erin Belieu

Chosen for the National Poetry Series by Hayden Carruth, Infanta introduces Erin Belieu as a poet with an uncanny knack for listening and for locating the perspective of various others within her poems. Armed with humor, anger, and sensuality, she fuses the discursive methods of fiction to a lyric impulse, resulting in a remarkable book of portraits, mostly of people caught in ungainly moments of failure and self-revelation.

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ISBN: 9781556591013

Format: Paperback

Rondeau at the Train Stop

It bothers me: the genital smell of the bay
drifting toward me on the T stop, the train
circling the city like a dingy, year-round
Christmas display. The Puritans were right! Sin
is everywhere in Massachusetts, hell-bound

in the population. It bothers me
because it’s summer now and sticky—no rain
to cool things down; heat like a wound
that will not close. Too hot, these shameful
percolations of the body that bloom
between strangers on a train. It bothers me

now that I’m alone and singles foam
around the city, bothered by the lather, the rings
of sweat. Know this bay’s a watery animal, hind-end
perpetually raised: a wanting posture, pain
so apparent, wanting so much that it bothers me.

About the Author

Erin Belieu was born in Nebraska and educated at The Ohio State University and Boston University. She is the author of Infanta, chosen by Hayden Carruth for the National Poetry Series; One Above & One Below, winner of the Midland Authors Prize and Ohioana Poetry Award; Black Box, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist; Slant Six, a New York Times favorite book of 2014; and Come-Hither Honeycomb (2020), all published by Copper Canyon Press. Her poems have appeared in places such …

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Reviews

“Despite (or perhaps because of) the numerous first volumes by new poets, it is always a surprise and a delight to encounter a true voice. Infanta provides just such an experience… The poet’s mixture of sexual and spiritual tension uniquely enlivens her work. This volume is a pleasure to read and promises future work of equal delight.” —Choice

“Belieu possesses the resources of language to make minutely discriminating observations. She can find the apt and striking metaphor… Formally, too, Belieu exhibits range. She writes in stanzas free and formal, in the prose poem, and in structures which allow her to interpolate outside sources—from Dickinson to DeLillo—in interesting ways.” —Hudson Review

“Belieu writes with impressive skill and a city woman’s charm about such subjects as ‘Erections,’ ‘The Problem of Fidelity,’ and ‘The Death of Humphrey Bogart,’ to cite three irresistible titles.” —Washington Post

“… Full of dry wit and cool analyses; this is sophisticated, tensile poetry that steps back from personal experience to expose the… often startling underlying reality… Belieu knows precisely what touches the human heart… [Her] sharp mind and lyric gift have produced a fast book that illuminates… ” —Amaranth

“Belieu is a poet of small moments patiently observed.” —American Book Review

“The poems in this first book are polished and worldly, looking coolly at their own deep emotions in small crises… and large… [Belieu] looks affectionately at a world that is dangerous… sensual.” —Bostonia

“[Belieu] is a master of nuance, of sparse and telling detail.” —English Studies (The Netherlands)

“Here are freshness and art. Belieu’s Infanta is a first book that presents… a distinctive new voice, outpacing conventional expectations.” —Robert Pinsky

“… A bravura performance” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“The poems [in Infanta] have a sophisticated urban chic that is both attractive and deceptive… They are original, fresh, extraordinarily skillful, grounded at the same time in literary, including historical, awareness and humane contemporary concern.” —Hayden Carruth

Awards

Chosen for the National Poetry Series