Our Vanishing

Frannie Lindsay’s fourth collection of poetry, Our Vanishing, investigates the ways in which we stay present, and humanely so, in an age where much—our environment, our faith, our sense of ourselves—is being stripped away, reduced, and devalued. The speaker explores worlds of profound loss and alienation as turning points back to a shared and enriched humanity. In telling their truth with compassionate objectivity, each striking poem gives heart, reuniting readers with the humble and ordinary goodness that sustains us all.

Praise for Our Vanishing

“
“It’s rare to find a collection of poems driven and infused throughout by the abiding emotion of love—not youthful romantic love with its overwrought fevers and passions, but love of the quiet, everyday, persistent sort, among friends, within long partnerships, between humans and dogs—love of the kind that can grow almost invisible to us although it is foundational, essential, to our lives. Our Vanishing, in its profound compassion for all mortal creatures, makes such love visible again. Its poems are engaged not with themselves but with the world, working not through pyrotechnics, not through the ‘look at me’ of dazzle and shake, but rather through a precision so fine and absolute that the reader’s desire for anything more falls away. This is the more, the poems assert, and they are not only correct but also entirely, convincingly, heartbreakingly true.”—Katharine Coles

“Endlessly inventive and packed with small surprises, these poems turn the ordinary inside-out. Their quiet elegance belies their urgency, always underlying, and makes the language all the more powerful for its restraint. There’s no extraneous decoration here, no prettifying or showing off. The poet takes the world head on, moment by moment, with an intelligence and compassion that are fierce. This is a poet who deserves far greater recognition than she has received. She’s among the very best of her generation, and Our Vanishing is one of the most honest, moving books I’ve read in years.”—Chase Twichell