Shannon Maguire reading from Myrmurs: An Exploded Sestina at the Fall 2015 Launch

49th Shelf Most Anticipated 2015 Fall Poetry Selection

Myrmurs is an innovative variant of the sestina form (a medieval mechanism of desire that spirals around six end words). Connecting medieval textuality to contemporary politics and poetics, this poem explores living systems: cities and languages as self-organizing entities; ants; interspecies entanglements; strange attachments; neocolonialism and how to break free of it. Following on her critically acclaimed debut collection fur(l) parachute (BookThug 2013), this is the second volume in Shannon Maguire’s planned medievalist trilogy.