Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls by Erika Meitner (Anhinga Press, 2011) 

  for sample poems or to order the book see the Anhinga Catalog (or order via SPD or amazon)

 

Cover art/design by the fabulous Brice Brown	"These cool, hot poems about women and girls in danger and on the prowl, coming of age and being of age, are full of startling detail and vivid setting. Meitner's range, wit, compassion and her alertness to the moments where domestic and collective experience intersect, make these poems memorable. This book is a seriously good read."  - Daisy Fried, author of My Brother is Getting Arrested Again   "Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls is a sexy, funny, smart book full of crack-the-whip language. Meitner climbs the scaffolding of different kinds of rhetoric— the abduction narrative, the extraterrestrial encounter, the customs declaration form, the marriage vow—to provide startling insight into questions of truth and its constructions. For its music, for its stylistic variety, for its ambition, and for its delights, this instruction manual proves its worth again and again." - Beth Ann Fennelly, author of Unmentionables   "Whether working from memories of girlhood or accounts of alien abduction, these poems trace the seam of the fantastic and the quotidian, carefully mapping the way each slides into the other.  Meitner's poems are at once smooth and explosive, combustible engines of propulsive force. Vigilance meets the makeshift when precise attention leads to new assessment, the transformation of the self indivisible from self knowledge." - Jason Schneiderman, author of Striking Surface
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Resources          study guide for Makeshift (pdf)         sample poems             Quisiera Declarar             Sex Ed             Instructions for Vigilant Girls             Campaign Speech           Press Kit           hi-res book cover (jpg)           hi-res author photo (b&w)           hi-res author photo (color)           short bio (pdf) | 125 words & 64 words           artist vitae (pdf) | 2 pages

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reviews of Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls (more coming soon...)

Barn Owl Review (Jeannine Hall Gailey)    The Journal (Andrea Janelle Dickens)    JMWW Review (Kelly Hatter)

Big Wonderful Press (Michele Battiste)    Cerise Press (Karen Rigby)

Damon McLaughlin's close reading of the title poem ("Instructions for Vigilant Girls")    Danielle Mebert's meditation on the book here

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To you? Someone else?                                                              Buy a signed copy of the book directly from me  via Paypal (17$ + free shipping),  and indicate in the box on the left to whom  (the name) I should sign the book to!