Stet: Poems

Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets

by Dora Malech

A fascinating collection of serious and playful poems that tap the inventive possibilities of the anagram and other constraining forms

In Stet , poet Dora Malech takes constraint as her catalyst and subject, exploring what it means to make or break a vow, to create art out of a life in flux, to reckon with the body’s bounds, and to arrive at a place where one might bear and care for another life. Tapping the inventive possibilities of constrained forms, particularly the revealing limitations of the anagram, Stet is a work of serious play that brings home the connections and intimacies of language.

“Stet,” from the Latin for “let it stand,” is a proofreading term meaning to retain or return to a previous phrasing. The uncertainty of changes made and then reconsidered haunts Stet as its poems explore what is left unsaid through erasures, redaction, and the limitations of spelling. How does one “go back” on one’s word or “stand by” one’s decisions? Can a life be remade or revised, or is the past forever present as in a palimpsest? Embodying the physicality and reproductive potentiality inherent in the collection’s forms and figures, Stet ends expectantly, not searching for closure but awaiting the messy, living possibilities of what comes next.

By turns troubling and consoling, Stet powerfully combines lyric invention and brilliant wordplay.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

Published October 30, 2018

About the author

Dora Malech is the author of four collections of poetry: Flourish (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2020), Stet (Princeton University Press, 2018), Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011), and Shore Ordered Ocean (The Waywiser Press, 2009). She lives in Baltimore, where she is an assistant professor in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

[silas denver melvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

wow!

[Wherefore Art Thou · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining exploration in experimenting with form - particularly, anagrams. I definitely think that the constrictions placed on the formation of the individual words obscures a specific meaning, but individual lines and the reflections produced results in some poignant moments and interesting rhythmic ping-pongs. I looked to absorb the poems as each a general feeling experience rather than a cryptogram to solve and I think I’m much better for it.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Academic, heady, hermetic.

[Tory]

Read 1/2/25

[Neal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pros: Malech shows absolute mastery over the forms she uses. The musicality throughout is beautiful. A real triumph of Malech’s ability to truly play with language.
Cons: some of the poems are a little academic and referential - which are given full context in the footnotes.