Pleasure Principle : Poems
“A wry… propensity for narrative.”
— The New York Times
“There are many poets writing spare, hyper-efficient lyric, but you would be hard-pressed to find one as sure-footed and savvy, as relentlessly good as this one.”
— McSweeney’s
“In Madeleine Cravens’ debut poetry collection, Pleasure Principle, art and life sit uneasily next to each other. Family members, childhood friends, and exes become characters and plots, but they do so uncomfortably, jarring against the confining nature of the words we use to describe those we love.”
—BOMB Magazine
”Incantatory… exhilarating… cosmic….”
— The Adroit Journal
“Elegant… bold…. the poet’s language is full of humour, pathos, and a bold curiosity for error.”
— Metal Magazine
“Here is a poetics of quiet resistance and shining anti-epiphany, of queer surplus matched with lyric understatement. Spare yet lush, cerebral yet sensual, Pleasure Principle draws our attention toward a world at once lovable and unlivable.”
— Maggie Millner, author of Couplets: A Love Story
“Beneath the understated precision of Madeleine Cravens’s line is an electric current of desire—for truth, to touch. Images are rendered with archetypal, psychic potency.”
—aracelis girmay, author of the black maria