Mercurial

by Allison Joseph

MERCURIAL is the latest collection of poems from Allison always accessible, musical, full of hard-earned wisdom, sass, and courage. Joseph writes about everyday situations in deft, heartfelt poems that span the spectrum of poetic ambition-free verse narrative, short lyrics, traditional rhyming forms and topical meditations. She is a poet of song and strut, an ambassador for the written word's deviations and variations, a conversationalist who just happens to speak in rhyme and meter. Readers of this book will encounter a woman who's not afraid to be herself—even if that self is ever-changing, ever- evolving.

Genres: Poetry

42 pages, Paperback

Published February 2, 2016

About the author

Allison Joseph (born 1967) is an American poet, editor and professor. She is author of six poetry collections, most recently, My Father's Kites: Poems (Steel Toe Books, 2010).

Born in London to parents of Jamaican heritage, Allison Joseph grew up in Toronto, Canada, and the Bronx. She graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A., and from Indiana University with an M.F.A. She teaches at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and is Director of the Young Writers Workshop at SIUC, which she founded in 1999: a four-day summer program for high school students. Many of SIUC's creative writing faculty and graduate students are involved with the workshop, and the student participants come from several states. In 1995, she was one of the founding editors of Crab Orchard Review as the magazine's poetry editor and has also worked as editor-in-chief since August 2001. She lives in Carbondale, Illinois.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well written chapbook of poems that focus on family, body identity, relationships and race issues. I would love to hear her read her poems, there are forms in this book I do not know as well as free verse, and Allison Joseph is adapt at crafting poems that work. I love her early poems of place and family in the Bronx and when she goes wider into the world of relationship and body. Women's issues across the book keep me turning the page wanting to know more of her perspective. She is wise and imparts wisdom.

[David M. M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this five years ago, and I thought it was all right. Upon rereading this year, however, I see this book for the beautiful and truly impressive work of art that it is. In both big and small ways, it reaches profound truths. It is significantly more personal than I gave it credit for back in 2020. I needed my eyes opened so much more than they were. Allison Joseph's work is absolutely fantastic. I almost envy it. I could learn so much from her. I must find more of her work