Christina Pugh’s Grains of the Voice exhibits a pervasive fascination with sound in all its manifestations. The hu­man voice, musical instruments, the sounds produced by the natural and man-made worlds—all serve at one time or another as both the framework of poems and the occa­sion for their lightning-quick changes of direction, of tone, of point of reference. The poems are eclectic in their al­lusiveness, filled with echoes—and sometimes the words themselves—of other poets, but just as often of songs both popular and obscure, of the noise of pop culture, and of philosophers’ writings. But Pugh always wears her learn­ing lightly. Beneath the jewellike surfaces of her poems is a strenuous investigation of the nature of and need for communication and a celebration of the endless variety of its forms. 

Christina Pugh’s previous collections of poetry are Restoration (Northwestern University Press, 2008) and Rotary (Word Press, 2004; winner of the Word Press First Book Prize).  Her recent honors include a 2015 Guggenheim fellowship in poetry and a Bogliasco Foundation fellowship in 2016.  She is Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and consulting editor for Poetry magazine.