Soft Threat

Poetry. "These poems by Alexis Pope make the stars fall out of my ears. Her words are the 'pale flight of fire' that connect the dying self to the living self. What do we want, anyway, but to 'kill you so you will feel / only me forever?' We want to be revealed and then hidden again. This book does that."—Emily Kendal Frey

"I start a house fire / I invoke Fred Moten and Alice Notley / I gently knead a costly signaling to describe Alexis Pope's debut collection, SOFT THREAT. Her territory sunflower, insurgent floor time in real time in the field in the desert in Death Valley. Intimacy with all / Intimacy with an urban plan, spreading Her Dailiness, spreading Her Inescapable Raw-Silk, Her Blood. What are the tones of a privacy that is already alien / that is already so dangerous to us? What are the tones of a Woman's felt and described privacy / the colors of her tumultuous, carnalbodied love of the Earth / Her Family? Pope is quick, violent, and thoughtful. In her, A Continuous Feast is / A Painful Feast is / a generous, necessary insistence to join, to listen, to experiment, to ocean."—Carrie Lorig

"Every time I read one of her poems, I think to myself holy wow, Alexis Pope is the truth. And I think this because Alexis Pope is so succinct, so sound, so able to hit on all of the soft-spoken and humble facets of human existence. Alexis Pope isn't just opening doors for us—she's pointing out new hallways that we never even knew would never leave us alone. She is afraid and she is fearless and she is so full of everything we need. Alexis Pope is a ton of honey. Alexis Pope is the water holding our hand. Alexis Pope is a soft threat, and her poems are hard-ass truths."—Mark Cugini

"Reading the poems of Alexis Pope's debut collection is like stepping into a dim parking lot, only to be astonished by the Northern Lights. Suddenly the prior darkness of our past and present is transformed into something shockingly luminous, surreal, and borderline divine. 'I am a shark I feel, / even though I am so hungry / and have never bit into the things / I have wanted,' the speaker tells us, in one of many poems that contribute a fresh perspective on desire, and the ever- lingering shadow of time. SOFT THREAT blesses American poetry with a voice that it desperately needs at this very moment."—Mary Biddinger