Michael Palmer

Little Elegies for Sister Satan presents indelibly beautiful new poems by Michael Palmer, "the foremost experimental poet of his generation, and perhaps of the last several generations" (citation for The Academy of American Poets' Wallace Stevens Award). Grappling with our dark times and our inability to stop destroying the planet or to end our endless wars, Palmer offers a counterlight...

Michael Palmer's new book—a collection in two parts, The Laughter of the Sphinx and "Still (a cantata-or nada-for Sister Satan)"—contains 52 poems. The title poem begins "The laughter of the Sphinx / caused my eyes to bleed" and haunts us with the ruin we are making of our world, even as Palmer revels in its incredible beauty. Such central tensions...