Site Specific: New and Selected Poems

“ Elaine Sexton enlarges on what Modernism observed,” writes Joyce Peseroff of Sexton’ s fourth collection, Drive, pointing to the qualities and breadth of her work as an artist, editor, essayist, and poet. With Site Specific, Sexton’ s new and selected poems, readers will witness the formation of a poet and artist whose work evolves thrillingly with each new publication. Featuring selections from her first four books, Sleuth, Causeway, Prospect/Refuge, and Drive, as well as twenty-seven new and previously unpublished poems, Site Specific demonstrates how the poet’ s early origin narratives become her materials for experimentation and artmaking. In the epigraph to her poem “ Subjects Matter,” Sexton quotes Lucien Freud, “ for me the paint is the person.” Here, the poems are the poet.

Elaine Sexton is the author of four collections of poetry: Sleuth (New Issues, 2003), Causeway (New Issues, 2008), Prospect/Refuge (Sheep Meadow Press, 2015), and Drive (Grid Books, 2022). Her poems, reviews, and artwork have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and sites, including American Poetry Review, O! the Oprah Magazine, and Poetry. She is a member of the faculty of the Writing Institute of Sarah Lawrence College, and frequent guest faculty at various writing and art centers in the US and abroad.