National Network for Equitable Library Service

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. Praise for Fiorentino's The Theory of the Loser Class: 'Fiorentino is smart and deft … By turns compassionate, funny and filled with self-loathing, The Theory of the Loser Class is never without the possibility of redemption.' – Globe and Mail