Indexical Elegies

Dying in Winnipeg

Don’t read me wrong –
I plan on dying in Winnipeg.

In a strange way I
posit Winnipeg is where everything always dies:

Grandfathers, clock radios, Chevrolets,
faith, journalists, fine-tip pens,

Earle Nelson, hockey dads,
your best friend from the old street.

Jon Paul Fiorentino’s new collection is a whip-smart poetic investigation of anxiety in all its many manifestations. Anxiety caused by geography, anxieties of influence and looming worries about loss inform the poems as they weave narrative threads that highlight both the treachery of language and its necessity in shaping human experience.

The poems here build on Derrida’s ideas about the psychological implications of memory and the archival impulse and on philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce’s semiotics of ‘the index.’ Indexical Elegies is a rich, emotionally charged work that showcases Fiorentino’s talents at their feisty, engaged best. From its Post-Prairie pamphleteering and Montreal musings to its moving elegies, this is provocative poetry that never loses touch with the reader’s pleasure.

‘In place of mythology and conventional symbols, the poems explore the
nature of language through puns, onomatopoeia, and aphorisms about
meaning ... [Fiorentino’s] combination of feeling and thought gives this book
remarkable power.’ – Montreal Review of Books

‘There is no mistaking Fiorentino’s sharp wit and precise vocabulary, which
are entirely individual – something far too few writers can claim.’
– Quill and Quire