Slouching Towards Entropy by Lisa Mangini

In this striking collection of poems, Mangini crafts a world that is uncertain and violent, that is made more so by the people in it. In the face of this violence – an injured bird, the murder of Matthew Sheppard, the end of the world – the speaker hones her keen skills of observance. These poems are Picasso’ed birds – they contain and are the brokenness of our world. If we are brave enough to pick them up, to hold them, we will know a terrifying beauty. This is all we have. “This will have to do.”

–Leah Nielsen

By having the courage to confront disorder and chaos, Lisa Mangini reminds us that even though we live without closure, we must stay open to moments of communion by learning to live with “quiet unfulfillment” – a pigeon in New York City with “hunger inside her and the eyes searching to satisfy it,” the narrator who learns to cope with what is given to her as a child, scooping a rock from the ground to tuck into her pocket because it is all she can find…Mangini’s vivid collection, Slouching Towards Entropy, is compelling because the poems are hard edged, are solid because they are true.

–Vivian Shipley

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]