Winner of the 2018 Fence Modern Poets Series
A classical frame— the agricultural year, its gleanings and turnings— rendered in modern mode, prismatic interiority trimmed with digital criticality.
“In LITE YEAR, Tess Brown-Lavoie flexes all the intricacies and ironies of the prose-poem form to navigate the absurd task of trying to live tenderly. Armed with vibrant syntax and an infectious sense of humor, these poems approach desire, power, illness, and “fragility et cetera” with a truly inventive voice. Epiphanies take place within a richly-textured urban pastoral—in Walgreens parking lots, in psychiatric hospitals, in front seats of sedans—as she draws maps for the largest and smallest of dooms. Throughout, Brown-Lavoie maintains the staggering intimacy of the letter to the beloved, or the letter to the self; to be called into such closeness is a gift.”
—Franny Choi
“Tess Brown-Lavoie navigates the absurd and cosmic cycles of violence and self-care. Diseases flare. People relapse. Families coalesce and rupture. Plants break the surface of the earth. Time passes and language is just one method of notation as the body and the land register it all.” —Carolyn Lazard, disability activist, author
“BROWN-LAVOIE’S LITE YEAR reminds us that— like fruit— we are ripest and sweetest when our skin is not as hard as it once was, but still finds a way to protect the bruises and softness of our meat.” —Victoria Ruiz, Police Abolitionist
“Unreadable my ass!”
Laura Brown-Lavoie
