WINNER of the CBC BOOK CLUB BOOKIE AWARD FOR BEST BOOK OF POETRY, 2010

Reviews for Indexical Elegies:

"There is no mistaking Fiorentino's sharp wit and precise vocabulary,
which are entirely individual - something far too few writers can claim."
QUILL AND QUIRE

"Fiorentino is a model poet of the moment, reminding us that the
present times are difficult and unwieldy, yet reigning in any hysteria
(however justified it might in such times) with his own brand of
linguistic and emotional restraint. ... Impossible not to hear the
 echo of César Vallejo here, intentional or coincidental. Impossible
 not to hope that Fiorentino ... will live—and keep writing—forever."
NEW PAGES

Jon Paul Fiorentino’s Indexical Elegies gorgeously unbolts the process of desiring
machines. Desiring machines, the spaces in which production of reality takes
place, are always binary, involving a flowing thing into another thing that ceases
 the flow: a breast to a mouth, an index to an elegy, a sign to an object. Desire
nourishes itself in its breaking down, in its not being fixed because it is a system of
breaks: thought to the pen, pen to the paper, words to the eyes,
sounds to ears, everywhere there are breaks and flows.
CONTEMPORARY VERSE

"As indexes, or indices, these elegies are a tribute to language—
since many of these poems emphasize language’s materiality rather than
language’s meaning. This attention to materiality is one aspect of what
 constitutes the "post-prairie"—a term that serves as a subtitle of the
 last section titled "Transprairie." "Transprairie" as a sequence and
 as an idea suggests Fiorentino’s exploration of the threshold between
traditional prairie writing—with an adherence to voice and experience—and
academic experimental writing—with an adherence to disjunction and
unconventionality. This book, however, shows Fiorentino inhabiting both
spheres confidently and comfortably in a way that suggests that he’s not
interested in transcending his prairie roots, but traversing them in new ways."
CANADIAN LITERATURE

"Stellar. The inclusion of loss builds a new city, as those of us
displaced by death always have to do, re-creating the spaces where
we once lived when people we lost were in our lives into the places
we are forced to live now, without them."
THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT
 
“Fiorentino [is an] unexpectedly tender and moving humorist. In entertaining
poems like “Famous Grey Chevette” and “Processional Development”
Fiorentino remixes found material, regional colour and absurd childhood
reminiscences to great effect, creating a vivid portrait of the city that is
simultaneously a source of his annoyance and his spiritual locus.”
THE PURITAN

"Fiorentino deftly turns his grief for the loss of mentors, his
hometown and his past into an examination of how the personal
is writ large over our homes, our maps and our mundanities.
A beautiful catastrophe."
ADVENT BOOK BLOG

"Fiorentino's combination of feeling and thought gives this book remarkable power"
MONTREAL REVIEW OF BOOKS

"Indexical Elegies [is] a great book of poetry."
THE COAST

"A sharp collection that is sure to please poetry fans and newbies alike."
TORONTOIST

"Indexical Elegies is a bold new collection of playful yet moving poems."
BULL CALF REVIEW

"Indexical Elegies is a fascinating book, full of intriguing little experiments."
ECLECTIC RUCKUS

Description:

Set in his two home cities of Winnipeg and Montreal, Jon Paul Fiorentino’s
Indexical Elegies archives losses of people, places and past lives. The title
sequence is a moving elegy for his friend and mentor, the late Robert
Allen. ‘The index is physically connected with its object; they make an
organic pair,’ suggested philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Fiorentino
spins the notion out in intriguing lexical threads, breaking down and
rebuilding elegy and language, parsing how the beloved and newly lost
can in some ways feel more present in their absence.

‘Fiorentino produces peaks of warmth and true sadness.’ -- The Globe and Mail

‘Fiorentino's The Theory of the Loser Class is an amusing, poetic treatise ...
tender, academic, furious and surprising.’ -- Eye Weekly