Keynote
An emotionally resonant debut collection by an extraordinary new poet
Book Title
May Day
Subtitle
Poems
Cover Image
- "Startlingly original. . . . Marquette's beautiful and macabre images have the feel of a classic fairy tale."—Star Tribune
Poem Excerpt
You arrive at my altar
with no idea
what it means to worship—to adore.
You haven’t even learned it:
ecstasy and suffering?
make the same face.
—from “The Offering”
with no idea
what it means to worship—to adore.
You haven’t even learned it:
ecstasy and suffering?
make the same face.
—from “The Offering”
Body
May Day is both a distress call and a celebration of the arrival of spring. In this rich and unusually assured first collection, the poet Gretchen Marquette writes of the losses of a brother gone off to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a great love that has left the world charged with absence and grief. But there is also the wonder of the natural world: the deer at the edge of the forest, the dog reliably coaxing the poet beyond herself and into the city park where by tradition every May Day is pageantry, a festival of surviving the long winter. “What does it mean to be in love?” one poem asks. “As it turns out, / the second best thing that can happen to you / is a broken heart.”
May Day introduces readers to a new poet of depth and power.
May Day introduces readers to a new poet of depth and power.
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About the Author
Praise
- “The poems [in May Day] plumb stories of lost love and anxiety, but each unearths glimpses of life’s wonder.”—Euan Kerr, MPR
- “May Day [is] one of the more moving debuts of poetry I’ve encountered in years. . . . These are poems of our time.”—The Brooklyn Rail
- “Lovely, dark, haunted, and haunting. . . . [Marquette’s] subjects . . . are so carefully handled, with such resolve and resignation. . . . Readers will remember this book.”—Publishers Weekly
- “Emotionally raw yet sensual poems plumb the depths of nature as well as the absence of loved ones.”—City Pages
