Swoon

Throughout her long and distinguished career, Erin Murphy continues to surprise and delight across an impressive range of forms and subjects. It is wonderful for us to have this book bringing together all these fine poems full of humor and heart. Reading this collection will make you feel like you just had a long conversation with one of your best friends, and one of our finest poets. -Jim Daniels, author of Late Invocation for Magic: New and Selected Poems

The superb new and selected poems in Swoon by Erin Murphy showcase her alchemical skills. She is a wizard of the poetic form (abecedarian, cento, ekphrasis, erasure, and villanelle, to name a few), along with the demi-sonnet, her own gorgeous and important form. Is there anything this poet cannot do? What I adore most is Murphy's kaleidoscopic view of the world matched equally by her depth of feeling-the curiosity, and then connection, she offers to all of us, her fellow humans, in our complex imperfections and joys. Swoon is a book you need to hold close. -Susan Rich, author of Blue Atlas

Erin Murphy's significant tome Swoon is-as expected from a poet of her caliber, range, and experience-simply exceptional. Wise, insightful, and oft-humorous, these poems teach us "...what it is/ to be a poet," whether by embracing lyric, narrative, prose, formal, documentary, or experimental poems-or, as in Murphy's case, all of them, including her self-invented, seven-line demi-sonnet. They also educate us about art, pop culture, current events, and how to be a full and complete human. Swoon is a fitting legacy for Murphy's signature style "to be remembered and known and maybe/ even a little loved."

 -Jen Karetnick, author of Inheritance with a High Error Rate