Dogs’ feelings aren’t complex, you say; they lackour nuances of mood. They looksad when we leave them, sure, and their joy at a rollin deer poo’s indisputable. But they don’t mullover what they’ve donebadly. No guilt bites them. No pre-dawnsorrow yawns . . . Well, maybe you’re right—but then, what’s gnawing at my pup? Each nighthe howls, accompanied by wheezesfrom a squeaky chicken toy he squeezesbalefully with his front paw.He cries as if all faith is flawed.I’ve laughed at my companionpumping his slapstick bandoneon,then sobered at the ache his notes reveal.Some sorrow at the heart of thingshaunts the rubber chicken’s songsand he responds until, lonesome as a train’s whistlelate in the darkness, his wails unsettlea valve my throatmust struggle to keep shut.The chicken has no minor chords.The dog’s expressiveness wants words.Still, that strain descendsinto the human soul and soundsdepths only the inarticulate can feel.
Fado
Words are for those with promises to keep.—W.H. AUDEN
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“Fado” from A Gaze Hound That Hunteth by the Eye by V. Penelope Pelizzon. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
V. Penelope Pelizzon’s A Gaze Hound That Hunteth by the Eye (Pitt Poetry Series), longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, was a TLS Book of the Year and one of LitHub “Favorite Poetry Collections” of 2024. Her first book, Nostos, won the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award; her second, Whose Flesh Is Flame, Whose Bone Is Time, was a finalist for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize. She is a Professor of English at the University of Connecticut.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Written over a decade while the author lived on four continents, A Gaze Hound That Hunteth by the Eye maps the cultural legacies we cherish against those we reject. Playful and wrenching by turns, with lines inflected by the spoken music of their Arabic, Oshiwambo, Xhosa, and Italian contexts, these profound poems explore a life where displacement is the norm.
"This collection has much in common with the perennial gardens with which it begins and ends, its beauty the sort that opens outward and proliferates, sowing itself. echoing across years."
—Plume
"Elegies, romances, eco grief, comedies, recipes, histories, and keen instruction: these poems hold the world in their lines. V. Penelope Pelizzon is a poet like no other, straddling centuries and continents with every brilliant line."
—Camille T. Dungy, author of Trophic Cascade
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