Vestigial

Poetry. "'[F]ragments—my / specialty,' writes Page Hill Starzinger in her compelling first book, VESTIGIAL, and, indeed, the title implies the book itself is a remnant. But if VESTIGIAL is fragmentary, ('leavinges / and fragmentes...etched and eroded...') it is a flood of fragments. This is a vivid, dynamic, and muscular collection whose poems seem able to sweep everything into themselves—from the etymology of early English to the percentage of homes in Delhi without clean water. Yet the poems are neither anarchic nor hectic. In fact, in counterpoint to their energy, there is a beautiful, almost grave, and measured cadence to this work as Starzinger, like Penelope, weaves and unweaves. As she writes, 'I keep trying to shape a story. I keep disappearing.' VESTIGIAL is a marvelous debut."—Lynn Emanuel