Missing Persons

The first half of this, Hilary Jacqmin’s first collection of poems, is grounded in her own life, and details her upbringing in Northern Ohio through a series of sometimes comic and sometimes serious vignettes.

It then moves on to adulthood, and grapples with the difficult realities of the workplace and relationships. In the second half of the book, the focus changes, moving between a variety of locales, times, and personas both real and imagined.

Considering questions of empire and autonomy, the poems jump from imperial India to post-meltdown Chernobyl. This section includes a series of circus poems set in America and on the Continent. Richly detailed, linguistically deft, and employing both formal and free verse, Missing Persons explores the strangeness of streetcar suburbs and the domestic’s intersection with the larger world.