ABOUT THIS BOOK

In her third full-length collection of poems, Jennifer Militello weaves fragmentary letters addressing illness and struggle through ventriloquisms of mythological heroes and dead composers, ancient goddesses and murdered girls. Stylized “dictionaries” open into lay-ered definitions meant like magical clothing or tutelary amulets to provide shelter from a world that cannot be controlled. As the poet stitches together a plethoric identity to ex-plore disguises, A Camouflage of Specimens and Garments casts a smokescreen of selves.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jennifer Militello is also the author of Body Thesaurus, named one of 2013’s top ten poetry books by Best American Poetry, and Flinch of Song, winner of the Tupelo Press First Book Award. She has been awarded the Barbara Bradley Award from the New England Poetry Club, the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award from Red Hen Press, and the 49th Parallel Award from Bellingham Review, as well as grants and fellowships from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Writers at Work, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Militello teaches in the MFA program at New England College.

REVIEWS

“In the face of supreme and therefore extreme quietude… Militello’s poems hand us over to that other life we nightly receive in dream.… [T]hese poems don’t merely delve the psyche’s depths, they harrow, and they harrow fantastic.”—Cate Marvin

“Militello’s poems stun and stupefy, goad and galvanize, illuminate and mystify.”— The Rumpus

“Her poems are paradoxical lyrics—disorienting syntax mixes parts of speech to create strante and uneven shifts of sound and meaning.… Militello explores the irreconcilable collision of body, psyche, and language when none are working as they should.”—Boston Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dear B, /3
Song of Interrogation / 7
A Dictionary of the Garment /8
A Dictionary at the Periphery /10
A Dictionary of Having Been Prey in the Voice of the Grandmother /12
A Dictionary of Preserving the Hydrangea's Bloom /14
A Dictionary of the Symphony in the Voice of Ludwig van Beethoven /15
A Dictionary with Foresight as 20/20 /16
A Dictionary of Venery in the Voice of Artemis /18
A Dictionary of Faith /19
A Dictionary of Following and Fading in the Voice of Eurydice /20
A Gospel of the Human Condition /21
Dear B, /25
Dear B, /26
Dear B, /27
Corrosion Therapy / 31
Criminal How-To /32
A Dictionary of Wooing and Deception in the Voice of the Sociopath /34
A Dictionary of What Can Be Learned in the Voice of the Sociopath's Lover /36
Conspiracy to Commit Larceny: A Recipe /37
Conspiracy to Commit Larceny /38
A Dictionary of Mechanics, Memory, and Skin in the Voice of Marion Parker /39
A Letter to the Coroner in the Voice of Marion Parker /40
A Dictionary of Keeping Quiet between the Monstrous and Holy in the Voice of Marion Parker /41
Working with the Instrument /43
Dear B, /47
Dear B, /48
Dear B, /49
A Dictionary at the Turn of the Millennium / 53
A Dictionary of Almost Drowning / 54
A Dictionary of Limbo /55
A Dictionary of Resignation /57
A Dictionary of Filming the Inside of a Tornado /58
A Dictionary of Sun and Sea in the Voice of Icarus /59
A Dictionary in the Voice of Icarus /60
A Dictionary of Wandering and Homesickness in the Voice of Odusseus /67
A Dictionary Measuring Cause and Effect / 62
A Dictionary of Feigning Survival /63
A Dictionary of the Dead in the Voice of the Living Collective /61
A Dictionary of Perishing /65
A Dictionary of the Afterlife /66
Dear B, /69
Notes /71
Acknowledgments /73