Slaughterhouse for Old Wives' Tales

"we live with the horrors of our own bodies / ornamented machines gnawing into the future / we may as well feed them dried plums / & pretend to love our young"



Slaughterhouse for Old Wives' Tales, Hannah V Warren's full-length debut, is a visceral collection that is not only read but also felt in the body. These fertile poems trace the lineage of hunger from mother to daughter to sister. Beginning with an excavation of dinosaurs, Warren's writing explores evolution-where we come from, what we offer, and what is left behind "when we plant our tree bodies." This is a collection of bones and organs. The line between flesh and earth, human and animal, blurs in its gorgeous, gruesome descriptions. Warren weaves language in ways that birth new meaning- "tender gash," "rotmouth," "skindamp," "lung-wide." Slaughterhouse for Old Wives' Tales will leave you breathless, haunted, and ravenous for more.