Crowned

"In Crowned, each poem is 'a whole universe of body slapping and song.' The poems swagger into the party. They are loud, swarthy, tender, beautiful things-real and gorgeous without pretense. Ellen Hagan is a poet we can trust. With soul and accountability and the earned knowledge of one who has seen the world, Hagan deftly reminds us of the worth of our own bodies, of our roots, of home." - Karen Harryman, author of Auto Mechanic's Daughter "Like a port town, Ellen Hagan's Crowned is a landscape of intersections. & this landscape houses comings & goings, loss & desire, the infinite pleasures & breakings of the body. Every thing touches every thing as she moves us, deftly, from asphalt to bluegrass, from Facebook to Katrina, from bourbon to Latin church prayers found on the inside of her mother's shoe-box before surgery. She disallows us the comfort or disillusion of distance but, instead, works for a brave reckoning with the past & present. To me, these poems cousin the poems of both Audre Lorde & Kim Addonizio: sometimes they leave you splintered, sometimes they leave you saved. It's as if Hagan has lowered her stethoscope down into the matter of things & asked it to speak. These poems are what the stethoscope said." - Aracelis Girmay, author of TEETH Ellen Hagan lives in New York City, where she earned her MFA from The New School. She is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and Conjwomen, and she is a co-founder of the girlstory collective. Crowned is her debut collection of poetry.