Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
In Update on the Descent, Ellen Hinsey draws on personal experience and family tragedy to forge a masterful meditation on the extremes of the human condition. A poet who situates herself in a landscape steeped in the tragic history and artistic splendor of Europe, Hinsey suffuses her work with the urgency of historical memory. Alternating lyrics, aphorism, anti-lyrics, and philosophical notebooks, she explores the nature of terror, war, tyranny, and violence as well as reconciliation and renewal of the human spirit. Called by Carolyn Forche, "A true poet, whose sense of line, cadence, and tonality is unsurpassed among poets of her generation," Hinsey brilliantly contributes to the tradition of poetry as a witness to history.
"Socially investigative and morally exegetic, Hinsey never crosses over into didactics. Her dialectic is composed of inventive arrangements that blend prose and aphorisms into prayer-like equations. In 'Transcript,' she alternates between italicized questions and reasoned responses. Between the horrors of war, she struggles to find 'sanctity,' 'mercy,' 'knowledge,' and 'love.' . . . Powerful and original, Update on the Descent is an urgent, probing book." —The Brooklyn Rail
Ellen Hinsey's other collections of poetry include Cities of Memory, winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and The White Fire of Time. Update on the Descent was a 2007 National Poetry Series Finalist. Her other honors include a Berlin Prize Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, and a Lannan Foundation Award. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared widely in such publications as the New York Times, the New Yorker, Poetry, the Southern Review, and the Irish Times. She lives and teaches in Paris.