White Lily

Why are my problems / always the worst? // And why / because I wrote that / do you think I don’t believe it? White Lily is John Emil Vincent’s love note to Louise Glück and Laurie Anderson, two artists inspired and bedevilled by white lilies. Under their spell the poet dives into parable, fable, received wisdom, compact discs, and ruined utopias like a gleeful truant child. Ever present: the white lily, its meanings, messages, and seductive scent. The collection begins with a meditation on Anderson’s song “White Lily” and its treatment of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s fourteen-hour film Berlin Alexanderplatz. It goes on to ponder whether, if we take them in earnest, our mistakes come to serve as the surest sign of seriousness. Throughout, Vincent’s poems trouble what’s exact and exacting, always with the white lily as companion, a promise of rebirth delivered in funeral tones.

John Emil Vincent is the author of several books including The Decline and Fall of the Chatty Empire, Bitter in the Belly, and Ganymede’s Dog. He lives in Montreal.