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Elizabeth Willis's new collection is a stunning collision of the pastoral tradition with the politics of the post-industrial age. These poems are allusive and tough. While they celebrate the pleasures of the natural world—mutability, desire, and the flowering of things—they are compounded by a critical awareness of contemporary culture. As we traverse their associative leaps, we discover a linguistic landscape that is part garden, part wilderness, where a poem can perform its own natural history. Divided into four cantos interrupted by lyrics and errata, Meteoric Flowers mirrors the form of Erasmus Darwin's 18th-century scientific pastorals. In attending to poetry's investigative potential, Willis shifts our attention from product to process, from commodity to exchange, from inherited convention to improvisational use.

Table of Contents

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  1. Cover
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  1. Title Page, Copyright
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-viii
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  1. CANTO
  2. pp. 1-15
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  1. The Similitude of This Great Flower
  2. p. 3
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  1. Sympathetic Inks
  2. p. 4
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  1. Her Mossy Couch
  2. p. 5
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  1. The Great Egg of Night
  2. p. 6
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  1. The Steam Engine
  2. p. 7
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  1. The Nettle
  2. p. 8
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  1. Of the Gulf Stream
  2. p. 9
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  1. A Description of the Poison Tree
  2. p. 10
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  1. Grateful as Asparagus
  2. p. 11
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  1. The Oldest Part of the Earth
  2. p. 12
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  1. The Circumstance is Worth Further Attention
  2. p. 13
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  1. Devil Bush
  2. p. 14
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  1. Glittering Shafts of War
  2. p. 15
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  1. Verses Omitted
  2. pp. 17-19
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  1. Verses Omitted
  2. p. 19
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  1. Canto
  2. pp. 21-35
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  1. On the Resemblance of Some Flowers to Insects
  2. p. 23
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  1. The Principal Catastrophe
  2. p. 24
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  1. Irritative Fevers
  2. p. 25
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  1. The Skirt of Night
  2. p. 26
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  1. Of Which I Shall Have Occasion to Speak Again
  2. p. 27
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  1. The Happiest of Poets
  2. p. 28
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  1. Diana's Trees
  2. p. 29
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  1. Her Bright Career
  2. p. 30
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  1. Phosphorescent Trains
  2. p. 31
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  1. Expiring Groans
  2. p. 32
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  1. The Most Powerful Machine in the World
  2. p. 33
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  1. Plants Possess a Voluntary Power of Motion
  2. p. 34
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  1. Buds and Bulbs
  2. p. 35
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  1. VERSES OMITTED BY MISTAKE
  2. pp. 37-39
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  1. Verses Omitted by Mistake
  2. p. 39
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  1. Canto
  2. pp. 41-55
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  1. Pictures Connected by a Slight Festoon of Ribbons
  2. p. 43
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  1. The Portland Vase
  2. p. 44
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  1. Oil and Water
  2. p. 45
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  1. Rosicrucian Machinery
  2. p. 46
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  1. Tiptoe Lightning
  2. p. 47
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  1. With New Prolific Power
  2. p. 48
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  1. Viewless Floods of Heat
  2. p. 49
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  1. The Ghost of Hamlet
  2. p. 50
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  1. Near and More Near
  2. p. 51
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  1. Hercules Conquers Achelous
  2. p. 52
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  1. Departure of the Nymphs like Northern Nations Skating on the Ice
  2. p. 53
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  1. Bright O'er the Floor
  2. p. 54
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  1. Solar Volcanos
  2. p. 55
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  1. Errata
  2. pp. 57-59
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  1. Errata
  2. p. 59
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  1. Canto
  2. pp. 61-75
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  1. Loud Cracks from Ice Mountains Explained
  2. p. 63
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  1. Why No New Planets are Ejected from the Sun
  2. p. 64
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  1. Ancient Subterranean Fires
  2. p. 65
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  1. Immortal Sire
  2. p. 66
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  1. Plundering Honey
  2. p. 67
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  1. A Bird of Our Country
  2. p. 68
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  1. One Great Tide
  2. p. 69
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  1. Fuel of the Lower People
  2. p. 70
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  1. In Flowers Concealed
  2. p. 71
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  1. Accidental Breezes
  2. p. 72
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  1. The Earth's Nucleus
  2. p. 73
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  1. Primeval Islands
  2. p. 74
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  1. Ferns, Mosses, Flags
  2. p. 75
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  1. Note on the Text
  2. p. 77
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. p. 79
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