Honorifics
An award-winning debut collection of poetry that explores Greek mythology, the physics of space-time, alternate universes, jellyfish, mothers and daughters, and my Chinese heritage.
“Honorifics is like one of
those rare albums that’s
no-skips, wall-to-wall hits.”
“My favourite poetry collection of 2021. The imagery in this is sublime.”
Awards
Winner of The Laurel Prize (Best First Collection category) 2022
Shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2022
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize Book of the Year 2022
Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2021
Recipient of an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2021
Longlisted for the Women Poet’s Prize 2020
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Reviews
“I’ve been excited about Cynthia’s work since I first read poems from her for her Primers submission. This collection delivers on the expectations those earlier poems established. This is language and detail, honed and luxurious. This is space and memory and migratory patterns and fable. An array of formal play and innovation. And everything finely weighted like a gift-box of intricate, interlocking mechanisms. This is the kind of poetry that leaves the poet in me dizzy with jealousy and admiration.”
— Jacob Sam-La Rose
“Honorifics is a dazzlingly inventive collection that circles around themes of love and yearning, family history and migration, with a sophisticated touch. Formally playful, these poems are alive with imagery and a restless intelligence. Miller asks: ‘which one of us is / the ghost and which is the / haunted thing’ – a complex questioning of selfhood and identity that permeates this heartfelt book.”
— Jane Yeh
“Honorifics opens with fractal grace, sounding out the beloved astonishments we leave to memory. Alight with blooming, “twilight radiance” and “ordinary amazement,” this startling first book floats among the dialects of our past and future selves, guiding you back to where every family’s universe begins: a mother’s voice, her stories and hands. This is oceanic—even cosmic poetry wedded to the dear intimacies William Blake calls “Minute Particulars.” I am awed and overjoyed by Cynthia Miller’s work. In these days of near-despair and fugitive delight, her poems glow as beatitudes and beacons for “all the terror, all the sweetness” of what survives us.”