The after party - Jana Prikryl

In this masterful, expansive debut collection, Jana Prikryl journeys through place and time, from a childhood in central Europe to present-day New York City, from ancient Rome to the Czech Republic and back again, all while unfolding a wide range of ideas about family, friendship, and love, and the buried conflicts within each. These poems tell a story of the self--the party of lives being lived and the after party of solitary contemplation--and showcase Prikryl's ambitious experimentation with style. The accomplished "Thirty Thousand Islands," the second half of the collection, presents some fifty linked poems, soliloquies, and character studies in a great variety of forms. Rooted in a single place, the remote shores off of Lake Huron in Canada, a place with no natural resources other than its beauty, it's an elegy that speaks on grief and dislocation, written with a metaphysical flair reminiscent of Elizabeth Bishop and guaranteed to become a classic of the genre. Honest, bold, and visionary, these poems are sure to confirm Prikryl's standing as one of her generation's greatest poets.