Fat Art, Thin Art

"Fat Art, Thin Art is a wrenchingly honest account-or enactment-of a writer's relation to her gift. . . . filled with hesitations, self-cancellations, erasures, and gratifying fireworks. The pleasure of Fat Art, Thin Art is witnessing Sedgwick discovering, again and again, the wonders-gorgeous shames and vindications-of what she can say."-Wayne Koestenbaum "How often the fiercest, the most autonomous American critics have been poets; from Emerson to Blackmur, from Burke to Hartman, many a discursion could be illustrated, even illuminated by reading the ulterior verse. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is such another, and it will enrich certain enigmas she has proposed, as well as appeal to certain appetites she has awakened, to immerse in this element-fragmentary at its widest reach (a deconstructed Victorian 3-decker), healing at its most abrupt ('the yard, the mud, the morning / in their new, punished clothes'), and ever searching for the makings of the dilemma. Such is the true poetics of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and of course it is the poetry as well."-Richard Howard "Reading Fat Art, Thin Art is a thrilling experience. The publication of these poems will help to complete our picture of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick who, already recognized as one of the most extraordinary critics of her generation, now proves herself one of its truly innovative poets."-Maud Ellmann "This is poetry of a great soul which presents to mind shapely and unmistakable presences brought very close to the eye. Fat Art, Thin Art is a work of poetic distinction and indispensable human use."-Allen Grossman