The Genome Rhapsodies

Poetry. 2014 Snyder Prize winner. "THE GENOME RHAPSODIES opens with Gregor Mendel's question: 'What is inherited, and how?' Like strands of DNA, the syntax in these brilliant and moving poems intertwines with the infinitely recombinant moments and utterances that comprise our lives, revealing that what we inherit, first and finally, is language itself... 'Try to Remember Before Language,' one poem urges us, but of course we can't. These poems re- member us in language and reveal how the past becomes us, in every sense of the word; they are gorgeous, unforgettable works of art."—Angie Estes, contest judge and 2015 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize recipient