Cry Baby Mystic (Free Verse Editions)

In Daniel Tiffany's Cry Baby Mystic, somatic questions join hands in a waltz of ragged secrets and placards of reborn language, hidden police, and scratchy names. Trembling voices crawl out from the page and then right into us - or do they climb out of us and into the scene? - growing horse veins on their necks and Googling the scene (as they speak).

- Sara Deniz Akant, author of Babette

Daniel Tiffany is a true virtuoso. His taut syllabics incorporate a range of idioms, at once demotic and high-flown; the sprung line breaks - the interruptions and stutterings - sharpen consciousness. The poem's cry-baby-mystic voice does no one's bidding and thereby thrills the muses. In tone and method and subject, Tiffany courts the deep end; the poem opens up a sinkhole on every page, and out of this well, a Hölderlin-esque outpouring of divine moodiness makes itself heard.

- Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Figure It Out

The speculative drive of Daniel Tiffany's inventive book-length poem offers a flurry of suspicions, forays, wisdoms. Micro-conversations spin up into our field of listening, then just as quickly fade away. Though the approach is playful, the beauty in this book is serious and emerges in a seriously beautiful way. Down-pressers and Mobb Deep make an appearance! And there is pain, a calling out in exasperation, celebration, visionary joy.

- Shane Book, author of Congotronic, finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize

Margery Kempe won't stop crying and no one can do anything about it. Hyper-formal and bent out of shape, Cry Baby Mystic turns into the song of a "mud oboe" that leaves us hushed, "hunched," in the dark. 

- Keith Tuma, author of Climbing into the Orchestra

Daniel Tiffany is the author of six full-length collections of poetry and five volumes of literary criticism, along with translations of Greek, French, and Italian writers. He is a recipient of the Berlin Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Berlin.

Daniel Tiffany is a poet and theorist who divides his time between Los Angeles and Berlin. He is the author of five previous full-length collections of poetry, including Privado (Action Books, 2010), The Dandelion Clock (Tinfish, 2010), and Neptune Park (Omnidawn, 2013), along with chapbooks from Oystercatcher Press and Noemi. Poems and documentary sources from his collection, The Work-Shy (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), which appeared under the signature of BLUNT RESEARCH GROUP, have been adapted for theater and incorporated into museum exhibitions across the U.S. Tiffany's poetry has appeared in journals such as Paris Review, Poetry, Tin House, jubilat, Lana Turner, Fence, Iowa Review, Volt, Poetry Project Newsletter, Bomb, Chicago Review, Brooklyn Rail, and many others. In addition, five volumes of his literary criticism have been published by presses including Harvard and Johns Hopkins, as well as the University of Chicago and the University of California. And he is the author of the entry on "Lyric Poetry" in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Literature. Apart from his own writing, he has published translations from French, Greek, and Italian writers. He is a recipient of the Berlin Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Berlin. www.danieltiffany.com