Cassie Pruyn's Lena asks new questions: why we love, why we grieve. We've read elegies before, but not like this. A lush and unsparing first book, Lena asks readers to understand love-crucially, a first love, an erotic love-in the context not of a love lost but instead of an identity gained: we must consider not only \"was she worth it?,\" but also \"who has she made me?\" Pruyn lets us feel what lovers feel-the magnetism, the physicality, the tenderness, the rage, the wondering-with language both musical and visceral. In these poems, the landscape is a character in itself; the past is as tangible as the present. Pruyn takes us to the \"Lost Love Lounge,\" we ride in a \"car / red as a dragon,\" and we observe the beloved \"stick herself in the belly with a needle\" in the way \"she used to attach her cufflinks.\" This is love and grief raised to the highest power; it is a debut not to be missed. | Lena by Cassie Pruyn, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters