Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower

<p>&quot;Lindsay's delight in imaginary and unknown worlds, her compulsion to write exactly what she doesn't know, removes her poems completely from the tired confessional anecdotalism of so much narrative poetry.&quot; - <i>Poetry</i></p><p>&quot;Sarah Lindsay's niche in contemporary poetry might be likened to that of Joseph Cornell's in modern art. Anything might turn up in a Cornell box: a stuffed bird, images snipped from old engravings, dice, corks, a broken watch--anything. Like Cornell, Lindsay also creates tiny, complete worlds that operate according to their own particular laws.&quot; - <i>Parnassus</i></p><p>In her fourth collection of poetry, National Book Award finalist and Lannan Fellowship winner Sarah Lindsay presents a lyric menagerie of bizarrely imagined personae and historic figures revealing their long-held secrets, alongside surprising scientific subjects and discoveries layered into quirky, dark-edged, sometimes macabre, always intimate and graceful poems. Imbued with a buoying sense of respect for the different, the unexpected, and the challenging, Lindsay's poems are alive with wonder.</p><p>And when asked the obvious question about the title, you can say, &quot;A 'bone-eating snotflower' is the inelegant slang for the worm-like creature, <i>Osedax mucofloris</i>, that feeds on the carcasses of minke whales in the North Sea.&quot;</p><p><b>From &quot;Without Warning&quot;:</b></p><p><i>Elizabeth Bishop leaned on a table, it cracked,both fell to the floor. A gesturegone sadly awry. This was close to factand quickly became symbolic, bound to occurin Florida, where she was surroundedby rotting abundance and greedy insects. One moment a laughing smile, a graceful handalighting on solid furniture, a casual shift of weight, the next, undignified splayed legs. The shell of the tableproved to be stuffed with termite eggs . . . </i></p><p>Sarah Lindsay graduated from St. Olaf College and holds a MFA from UNC Greensboro. Her first book of poetry, <i>Primate Behavior</i>, was a finalist for the National Book Award. She currently works as a copy editor for Pace Communications, and lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.</p><br>