Lovers & Killers

by Mary A. Turzillo, Bruce Boston (Editor)

Dark Regions Press is excited to announce Lovers & Killers, a new collection of thirty-seven poems from Nebula Award winning author Mary Turzillo (also known as Mary T. Brizzi)! The collection includes twenty-five original poems. "Mary Turzillo sees the bones beneath the skin, and lays bare the nerves. Like shiny scalpels her sardonic and lovely words mordantly reinterpret botany and biology, astronomy and mythologies, crimes and passions, pungently, poignantly." - Ian Watson, BSFA Award author of The Butterflies of Memory "In Turzillo's razor-sharp lines, lovers and killers are examined, deftly dissected, and exposed to the world. The lovers and killers that you thought you knew are transformed, viewed from new perspectives. All types are captured in these pages. Even the page and the reader fall under her scrutiny. One can't help but surrender to Turzillo's vision and unique blend of wit and profundity." - J. E. Stanley, author of Dark Intervals and Intrinsic Night "Lovers & Killers is another gem-filled collection by a consistently imaginative master. Disturbing, playful, ruthless poetry. Turzillo is an emblem of the speculative poetry genre. She's not afraid to show that Iphigenia, Shakespeare, Fomalhaut, Basho, physics and dragons all exist in the same poetic universe. Her deeply serious irony fills these poems with delightful surprises." - Timons Esaias, Asimov's Readers Award author, BSFA Award Finalist. "Mary Turzillo's exciting new book, Lovers & Killers is a bold series of interpenetrations of various religious and psychological traditions from Europe, India, ancient Greece, North America, and elsewhere. Portals of human experience open and close in these poems, the past melts and stands again in younger tenses, the future shapes content while time keeps the poet's beat. I love these poems. Turzillo spreads her wings so we can spread ours." - Michele F. Cooper, author of Posting the Watch ..".this morning I opened it up, planning to read a couple poems and send an offer to finish reading and blurb immediately if it was still applicable, but here I am, having read the entire collection in a sitting and letting you know how horribly delicious it was. The blood, the tender death, the vicious love. If the book has already gone to press, this blurb is for you alone. Would that I could have shared it with your readers." - Laurel Winter, Rhysling and World Fantasy Award winner "Mary Turzillo's writing is wonderfully, delightfully twisted. The poems found in 'Lovers & Killers' will ignite your imagination with fantastical worlds and scenarios, make your heart ache as tragedy unfolds, cause your stomach to squirm in disturbance, and make your spine tingle with excitement, often all at the same time." - Vertigo Xi'an Xavier, publisher of The Poet's Haven

Genres: Poetry

74 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2012

About the author

Mary Turzillo's 1999 Nebula Award winner for Best Novelette "Mars Is No Place for Children" and her Analog novel An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl are recommended reading on the International Space Station. Her poetry collection Lovers & Killers won the 2013 Elgin Award. She has been a finalist on the British Science Fiction Association, Pushcart, Stoker, Dwarf Stars and Rhysling ballots, and Sweet Poison, her Dark Renaissance collaboration with Marge Simon, was a Stoker finalist and is on the 2015 Elgin ballot. She's working on a novel, A Mars Cat and His Boy, and lives in Berea, Ohio, with her scientist-writer husband, Geoffrey Landis. Find her at www.maryturzillo.com.

Reviews

[DivaDiane SM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Mary Turzillo's writing style. It's less formal than many poets in her syntax and word choices, which isn't to say, it's shallow at all. Quite the contrary, Turzillo draws you in by making you feel at home in the language, but the subject matter is what stretches your mind. She takes familiar characters or stories, from everyday life, Greek mythology modern astronomy and shines a special light on it or regards them from an irregular angle giving the familiar a twist that must be turned in your mind a few more times. It's also a book that could be ripped through, it's so easy to read, but it's many-layered nature benefits from a bit more leisure.

Please see my full review at Amazing Stories:

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/04/...

[Ann Schwader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a varied and thoughtful assortment of speculative poems. Intertwining SF, horror, and a deep sense of history, Turzillo's tone ranges from serious to savagely playful.

An uncompromising, intelligent feminism underpins many of these poems -- but ideology never gets in the way of craftsmanship. Almost every poem in this collection rewards multiple rereadings, for both meaning and music.

[Marc-Antoine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never thought I could enjoy poetry, now I know I can... This was incredibly good!

[Mariusz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moves my nerves positive way. Brilliant.