Ceremonial

Carly Joy Miller, Orison Books (MAY) Softcover $16 (104pp), 978-0-9964397-7-0

How to prepare for this collection? Pick your teeth with an axe after chewing on some freshly split ash. Carly Joy Miller is relentless. She doesn’t want you to breathe normally. Her lines resemble piano wire around the neck of a scary clown. But they also reward with her uncanny sense for knowing just when to lower the heat, just when to acknowledge her better angels. A contributing editor at Poetry International, her work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Boston Review, The Adroit Journal, and other publications. This collection won The 2017 Orison Poetry Prize a year after her chapbook, Like a Beast, claimed first place in the 2016 Rick Campbell Prize.