Flesh-plastique, Dennis Hinrichsen’s tenth full-length collection, explores an array of debris fields, where we experience the repercussions of a life fueled by dirty, secular Eucharists. Moving at hyper speed through worlds—a compromising job in the nuclear industry, the purloined grave of the Apache chief Geronimo (not far from Atomic Annie, a cannon that could shoot a nuclear projectile)—Hinrichsen articulates each scene with a swift directness and capacious emotional range. In collages and atmospheric lyrics with stunning formal collisions, we hear anger and humor directed at the mess we have made of things, from the unsolved problems of nuclear waste and toxic forever-chemicals to the decay of the American family. But we also hear joy for the sheer pleasure of music and old technologies; we hear compassion for friends stricken with dementia; and ultimately, we hear notes of hopefulness for a world which swirls wildly and dangerously around us.
Pre-order here! March 21, 2023, publication date.
Praise for Flesh-plastique
In a nuclear age without a nucleus to cling to, the poems of Dennis Hinrichsen’s Flesh-plastique flit and careen across time and space, both dexterously and dangerously—grieving, grooving, lusting, waiting—and showing us how to live—fully live!—between an unsettled past and an uneasy future: “I too am cut with Eros and toxicity—fearing death—by isotope and viral load—but still pursuing nakedness.” A searing, audacious, deliberative book.
—Lauren Russell
In Flesh-plastique, Dennis Hinrichsen is once again, and even more vigorously, a formal genius, every page engineered into a canvas of airborne lines, charted space, and radical gifts of punctuation that feel like symbols and stamps—sometimes even scars. His words throughout gleam intensely personal and political, often at the same time: wounded lands of heart and world. Sometimes they are not easy words or comfortable or cozy words, but they are honest and longing—absolutely human in their undisguised vulnerability.
—Maureen Seaton
Flesh-plastique is Dennis Hinrichsen’s tenth full-length collection of poetry. His most recent work includes schema geometrica, winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize from Green Linden Press, and This Is Where I Live I Have Nowhere Else To Go, winner of the 2020 Grid Poetry Prize. His other awards include the 2015 Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Prize from Map Literary for Electrocution, A Partial History, the 2014 Michael Waters Poetry Prize from Southern Indiana Review Press for Skin Music, the 2010 Tampa Poetry Prize for Rip-tooth, the 2008 FIELD Poetry Prize for Kurosawa’s Dog and the 1999 Akron Poetry Prize for Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights as well as the 2016 Third Coast Poetry Prize and a 2014 Best of the Net Award. Work of his also can be found in two anthologies from Michigan State University Press, Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice, and RESPECT: An Anthology of Poems on Detroit Music. He lives in Lansing, Michigan, where from May 2017–April 2019, he served as the first Poet Laureate of the Greater Lansing area.