End of Empire - (Penguin Poets) by Marissa Davis (Paperback)

About the Book

"From a prizewinning poet whose work "points to an unfathomably bright future for the canon" (Danez Smith), a stunningly lush collection about desire, mythology, and our fraught and ecstatic relationship with the natural world A collection as remarkable for the force of its feeling as for the range of its vision, End of Empire explores personhood, and especially Black womanhood, within an ecological framework. Inspired by the language and landscape of the poet's rural Kentucky hometown and the ways that inherited religious and political narratives shape our relationships with our surroundings and ourselves, these poems reckon with the ways the speaker, their body, and their natural and ideological surroundings continuously remake each other. Formally dynamic, emotionally resonant, and rich with biblical, mythological, and historical allusions, these are elegant, impeccably crafted pieces that evoke the fearsome power of nature and of the tangled, sensual self"--

Book Synopsis

From a prizewinning poet whose work "points to an unfathomably bright future for the canon" (Danez Smith), a stunningly lush collection about desire, resilience, and our fraught and ecstatic relationship with the natural world

A collection as remarkable for the force of its feeling as for the range of its vision, End of Empire explores the tensions of Black and American identity within an ecological framework. Inspired by the language and landscape of the poet's rural Kentucky hometown and the ways that inherited religious and political narratives shape our relationships with our surroundings and ourselves, these poems reckon with the ways the speaker, their body, and their natural and ideological surroundings continuously remake each other. Formally dynamic, emotionally resonant, and rich with biblical, mythological, and historical allusions, these are elegant, impeccably crafted pieces that evoke the fearsome power of nature and of the tangled, sensual self.

Review Quotes

Advance praise for End of Empire

"Spanning rural Kentucky and Greek mythology, accomplished debut End of Empire by Marissa Davis (July, Penguin Poets) begins at the ends. Only in the fragmentation of language at every point (syllable, thought, place) and by any means (en dash, line break, blank space, brackets) can the landscapes of the collection (environmental disaster, plant life, Blackness, the Bible) become real . . . After the flood comes the sun, these poems weathered by the relief and withering." --Poetry Northwest

"A rich, sprawling work that nods toward biblical and mythological references, history, and rural landscapes . . . Davis deploys her innovative approach to language and inquiry. The work moves with a wise and deliberate eye, creating a visceral resonance of meaning . . The poems look closely at politics, a Kentucky childhood, the Black body, and human resilience with a skill that maps the interconnectedness of people, place, and consequence across time . . . One is encouraged to return for repeated and close examinations of a truly beautiful work." --Booklist

"A full-on embrace of a swift-fire and tenacious intellect. Davis hears the sprawling music beneath our errant swerves, our fractured selves. But here is a special kind of spirit work. I measure poems by the strong sense of what is passed to a reader; Davis's poems reconstitute language, extract its bright glimmerings, and points a way back to our elemental wonder. Straight up fire!" --Major Jackson, author of Razzle Dazzle

"In Marissa Davis's stunning and wide-ranging debut, End of Empire takes as its task the unraveling of what we have learned in the crucible of home, country, gender. Fragmented and lush, economical but expansive, this collection finds solace in the possibilities of new grammars. From Paducah, Kentucky to Paris, France, from Ecclesiastes to Persephone, Davis's poems refuse what is no longer tolerable, instead practice the slow, long ways knowing that can bring us back to ourselves and each other. " --Donika Kelly, author of Bestiary and The Renunciations

"Against eloquence, ennoblement, and the first person, Marissa Davis's End of Empire pursues language to the limits of the unutterable. What's amazing is that, at this bare point where she tears syntax apart, Davis hovers at an extravagant perpetual crescendo . . . Read this book!" --Ken Chen, author of Juvenilia

About the Author

Marissa Davis is a poet and translator from Paducah, Kentucky. Her writing has appeared in Poetry magazine, Narrative, Gulf Coast, and Prairie Schooner, among other journals. Her chapbook, My Name & Other Languages I Am Learning How to Speak (Jai-Alai Books, 2020) was selected for Cave Canem's 2019 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. Davis holds an MFA from New York University and was a 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow. Following years in Nashville, Tennessee, and Brooklyn, New York, she now lives in Paris, France, where she is pursuing a master's in Editorial, Economic, and Technical Translation at the Sorbonne Nouvelle.