Threnody
Cover Art by Nicci Mechler
Threnody explores the figure of lady-death, an icon come to life in these poems about the death cart, the death kiss, and a narrative dance with death. This is a collection of linked micro fictions & vignettes. They read like prose poems, too, which is part of the beauty in them—these small works live in a liminal space, somehow between poetry and prose, but also an almost-dream state between life and death. Sometimes versus too.
Threnody (from the Greek word thrēnōidia implying lament) is set in New Mexico and narrates the journey of the protagonist “I” who meets lady death, befriends her, and rides in her death cart. Wiseman is a brilliant poet, and this can be seen in the manner in which she constructs the fourteen micro-pieces. All of them carry a generous use of vowels and soft consonants, eerily highlighting the lament that lasts throughout the narrative.
– Shinjini Bhattacharjee, Morphemic Morphology
Praise for Threnody
Threnody Blotterature
Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Threnody (Porkbelly Press, 2014) defies categorization. The fourteen micro-pieces float between genres, which creates a reading experience as mysterious and ethereal as the subject matter. The chapbook is a beautiful rendition of some of the most conflicting and uncomfortable female experiences, personified through lady death and her death cart.... You don’t just read these words, you feel them, like they are crystallizing and fusing with the deepest parts of you. They are brave, honest, and beautiful. The works in Threnody are balanced and they flow, creating a chapbook that resonates with the unexplainable moments of human experience. Wiseman truly is a master of her craft. – Blotterature
Threnody Bhattacharjee
Threnody (from the Greek word thrēnōidia implying lament) is set in New Mexico and narrates the journey of the protagonist “I” who meets lady death, befriends her, and rides in her death cart. Wiseman is a brilliant poet, and this can be seen in the manner in which she constructs the fourteen micro-pieces. All of them carry a generous use of vowels and soft consonants, eerily highlighting the lament that lasts throughout the narrative. – Shinjini Bhattacharjee, Morphemic Morphology
Threnody Tuite
Laura Madeline Wiseman’s Threnody is one kickass, wailing dirge that has death driving shotgun, “more hold you than break you apart,” luminous, pulsating language that defies fear and denial. – Meg Tuite
Threnody Baker
These poems are powerful, possessing great lyrical intensity and a profound sense of the mystery inherent in this mythic feminine journey into the underworld. Here the poet is an archeologist of the subterranean mind, lifting bits and pieces of knowledge like shards of pottery back up to the light. – Devreaux Baker
Threnody Schaffert
Mythic rituals have hints of danger and sex and regret, and Wiseman’s incantatory language mixes dream and nightmare, and Eros and Thanatos, in little portraits that soothe as they trouble. I admired each piece’s swift iconography. – Timothy Schaffert
Related Links
- Review in Morphemic Morphology
- Interview in Terpischore’s Atrium
Sample Poems