Airs Above Ground by Jill Mceldowney

“Unflinching in its reckonings with violence, and surprising and compelling in its lyrical reconfigurations of relationship and self, Airs Above Ground is a hard, beautiful debut. “If a horse kicks hard enough it can start a fire,” Jill Mceldowney writes in poems that sing and blaze.”

–Alexandra Teague author of Mortal Geography and The Wise and Foolish Builders

“With one broken phrase after another, the brutality suffered by the speaker of Jill Mceldowney‘s spectacular chapbook, Airs Above Ground, arises as echo, much like the ache of an old break in a bone that holds the memory of the moment it was broken. Love is an act of defiance in these poems: I want something I love to eat me alive. The discord in an abusive relationship becomes a thing to be flirted with, thumb to the wound. Yet, there is an exquisite sadness in the demands for love from someone who confuses love for violence. Between fury & conciliation, Mceldowney’s poems erupt, particularly in this fraught political moment. The final rallying cry: Fight back.”

—Chelsea Dingman author of Thaw National Poetry Series Winner