Blooming Fiascoes: Poems

Blooming Fiascoes is a collective of verse that deconstructs identity.

We are beautiful and monstrous. We live in a beautiful and monstrous world. Ellen Hagan poetically mirrors these metaphoric adversaries, drawing on her experiences as a woman, an artist, a mother, a transplanted southerner, and above all, a human being.

She plumbs origins in history, body, and living to question how we reckon our whole selves in the catacombs of a world gone mad:We mourn, we bless, / we blow, we wail, we / wind-down, we sip, / we spin, we blind, we / bend, bow & hem.

We / hip, we blend, we bind, / we shake, we shine, / shine.

We lips & we / teeth, we praise & protest.In these poems, Assyrian, Italian, and Irish lines seep deeper into a body that is growing older but remains engaged with unruly encounters: the experience of raising daughters, sexual freedom, and squaring body image against the body's prohibitions.

This is a work where the legacy is still evolving and always asking questions in real time.

Blooming Fiascos spindles poetry that is not afraid to see itself and the lives it inhabits.