Drolleries [Paperback]

The second poetry collection from the award-winning author of Hacker Packer

RAYMOND SOUSTER AWARD FINALIST

Invoking human-animal hybrids in various stages of metamorphosis, Drolleries veers between the beasts of the forest and the opulence of the art gallery. Personal and historical struggles are held against the backdrop of the grotesque and fantastic: A marriage unravels in Goya's Black Room. The diagnosis of a blood-clotting mutation is read through the tarot. The violence of the patriarchy is filtered through the subconscious. In sonically rich lyric poems that traverse the vulnerability of confession and the dramatic possibilities of persona, Drolleries invokes its monsters as a means of working through internal turmoil, existential doubt, and heartbreak. This collection investigates how the lure of romantic relationships, the enchantments of art, and the seductions of power can be both destructive and transformative - and ultimately become a pathway to self-realization.“Cassidy McFadzean’s Drolleries evokes magic and vivid detail . . . Rarely does a poetry collection do such a cogent job of combining world-building and specifics. In Drolleries, McFadzean comes into her own as a metaphor maker. . . . A must-have for its technical skill and lyrical brevity. --Quill & Quire

“There’s a lushness in Drolleries, an opulence; even the shortest lyrical pieces are dense with detail. Sometimes the collection’s tone turns nearly documentary, illuminating minutiae with an art historian’s fervor. If McFadzean’s catalogues and descriptions occasionally veer toward the extravagant, it’s not due to a lack of self-control (the poems are, in fact, admirably precise andlƒÈ