Exclusive Cover Reveal of “The Rose” by Ariana Reines

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of The Rose by Ariana Reines, a poetry collection which will be published by Graywolf Press on April 15th 2025. You can pre-order your copy here . In The Rose , award-winning poet Ariana Reines explores the intersection of rage and surrender. Drawing on the lineage of medieval troubadours’ erotic poetry, Reines employs the feminine, sexual symbology of the titular flower to also explore masculine pain: “I loved to hurt, be hurt by him. / There was a locked & secret mansion in him that I loved.” In these poems, inherited ideologies of femininity and masculinity are replaced with bold vulnerability, and the overturning of gender dynamics transforms the speaker’s understanding of suffering, desire, and transmutation. The voice in The Rose is wry and bare, dealing honestly with the connection between erotic love and spirituality. Reines approaches these themes with humor that acknowledges and despairs of their melodrama: “I want to vomit, die, and change my life in that exact order.” Investigating war, maternity, violence and sensuality, and the role of writing in magical acts, Reines is unafraid to write “the horrible / And Freudian thing” that “might ruin this poem,” and the result is a bloody and pulsing, sexy and unabashed bloom. Here is the cover, designed by Jeff Clark. Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. Submit YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of the week on Fridays. Personalize your subscription preferences here. Designer Jeff Clark : “For the first round of designs I did for the cover of The Rose , I mainly worked with an image, supplied by Ariana, of a 15th-century aquamanile (vessel for pouring water) in the form of Aristotle, on all fours, being ridden by Phyllis, whose right hand is clutching his hair and whose left hand is slapping his bottom. According to […]

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