“Steady, My Gaze is a metaphysical page-turner. Marie-Elizabeth Mali is not fooling around—she means to find her way to the real—each poem makes possible the next—a breath-taking debut.”
—Marie Howe
“Marie-Elizabeth Mali wants “the honeyed sizzle beyond all language,” wants to be a vulnerable and conscious participant in the life of things as they are, awake to love and the struggle to live freely and compassionately. “How to hold the ocean,” she asks, “when the vessel leaks? Rise your wild, / dear animal””
—Mark Doty
“Wherever her well-versed gaze lands, whatever chords she seizes and sings, however she chooses to tango across the floor of your imagination, you are assured to be embraced and hypnotically swept up by Marie-Elizabeth Mali’s stylish rotations of thought and pivoting reflections. What she executes in language, “all flit and hover,” is no mere feat and goes beyond our standard fare of dramatic recall and gestural redemption.”
—Major Jackson
“Attuned to the sensual and the sacred, Marie-Elizabeth Mali is engaged in “the pursuit of some ground to call home.” A restless traveler of the landscapes of self and the self’s origins, Mali is always a seeker reminding us to “Praise this beautiful, terrible world where we are opened / and crushed.””
—Kim Addonizio
“Marie-Elizabeth Mali is a poet of extraordinary sensitivity who picks up the signals of joy and suffering and puts that music out into the world. She is utterly honest and unafraid, capable of wonder yet grounded in compassion. This is a steady gaze indeed.”
—Martín Espada
“Steady, My Gaze is a book we can open anywhere—go ahead, do it now—and discover how young poetry still is, how much still remains to be savored. You'll want to read it more than once. “Forgetfulness is ecstasy’s cousin.””
—Brendan Constantine
“What a perfect title for this book. Its gaze is steady and more: tender (there are marvelous and unabashed love poems here), illuminating, and bursting with a life force so strong and so rare that it should be almost illegal!”
—Thomas Lux
