What's Hanging on the Hush

Author: Lauren Russell

Publisher: Ahsahta Press (2017)

What's Hanging on the Hush wrestles with concerns that range from race, gender and sexuality to loneliness, madness and grief, and nothing escapes questioning, least of all the position of the poet herself. With humor and slightly off-kilter introspection, these poems disrupt even their own speaking, frequently singing "I." Collectively, they demonstrate the underlying restlessness of a subjectivity never quite at ease, like the solitary cats who meander across these pages and disappear only to turn up where they are least expected. Operating in a range of modes, from tight lyrics to sprawling, fragmented texts to language experiments, What's Hanging on the Hush is a tightly constructed interrogation of construction itself. At its heart is an exploration of solitude and a feminist's existential reckoning—the struggle of being/making in the world.