Join Brookline Booksmith for a virtual event with poets Elizabeth Powell and Mark Wunderlich for a reading and discussion of their new works.

Buy Elizabeth Powell's Atomizer || Buy Mark Wunderlich's God of Nothingness

Elizabeth A. I. Powell is the author of Atomizer (2020 LSU Press), two previous collections of poetry, and a novel, Concerning the Holy Ghost's Interpretation of JCREW Catalogues. She is an associate professor of writing and literature at Northern Vermont University and Editor at Green Mountains Review.

Atomizer explores fragrance and perfumery as a means of biological and religious seduction. Evoking Whitman's sentiment that we are all made of the same atoms, Atomizer looks toward an underestimated sense--scent--as a way to decipher the liminal spaces around us. Molecules of perfume create an invisible reality where narratives can unfold and interact; pathways through which Powell addresses issues of materialism, body image, and the physical and psychological contours of emotional relationships. A work of fearless social satire and humorous yet painful truth, Atomizer offers a cultural, political, and sociological account of love in the present moment.

Mark Wunderlich is the author of The Earth Avails, winner of the Rilke Prize; Voluntary Servitude; and The Anchorage, winner of the Lambda Literary Award. He teaches at Bennington College and lives in the Hudson Valley in New York.

God of Nothingness is a book for those who have seen death up close or even quietly wished for it. In these poems, honed to a devastating edge, Mark Wunderlich asks: How is it we go on as those around us die? And why go on at all? This collection is a brilliant testament to the human ability to make something tough-minded and resilient out of despair and the inevitability of death drawing near. Some poems are moving elegies addressed to mentors, friends, and family recently gone; some contend with the unasked-for responsibilities of inheritance and the family name; others call forth the understanding of being the end of a genetic line; still others remember a rural midwestern coming-of-age. Present all the while are the prevailing comforts and wonders found in the natural world, work, and the longing for traditions that seem to be passing from our time. Exquisite in its craft and capaciousness, God of Nothingness is an unflinching journal of solitude and survival.