Capricorn in Flux
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Pub Date Nov 10 2026 | Archive Date Oct 16 2026
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Description
Throughout Capricorn in Flux, Glaser’s eleventh book of poetry, we hear that same voice, vivid and precise and crackling with verve and wit. To borrow a line from Robert Lowell, he is still “free-lancing out along the razor’s edge.” But this time, the sprightliness is shadowed by a darker perspective. Now in his early eighties, Glaser takes into account the diminishments and indignities of late age. Though he calls himself “Laureate of the bent vernacular and the slippery joke,” he also cannot help but feel the encroachments of the concluding years: “The nervous pressure of what’s next.” Harboring what comforts are left—the arts, a new love, the cycle of the seasons—Glaser finds the resilience he needs as everything else fades away, that last flare of grace and energy, ever restless and exuberant: “The mind buried alive in the body.”
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
"Elton Glaser’s serious wit and splendid spirit are the perfect anecdote to human aging during a time of world upheaval. In his latest, Capricorn in Flux, he’s got Frank Sinatra and Brahams, but also the Cramps and Professor Porkchop. Glaser’s language is deft and durable, brainy and humane. He is ‘that guy who always campaigned / to turn Glocks into glockenspiels.’ "
--Denise Duhamel, author of Pink Lady
"With Capricorn in Flux, his eleventh collection, Elton Glaser approaches legend status. The rhythm of his revelations come at punk velocities mixed with a Blues base line melancholy: He says more in ten lines than most poets say in ten poems! In funny, viciously elegant turns, Glaser investigates our current culture and the forces of distraction that bleed, and bleed into, our everyday search for truth."
--Dorothy Barresi, author of What We Did While We Made More Guns
"I cannot think of another recent book of poems that has the sweep of Elton Glazer’s Capricorn in Flux. Spiked with irreverence, filled with loneliness, and wryly lyrical throughout, Glazer’s tripartite volume is composed of a love story bookended by youth and age. He writes with remarkable dispassion about love and remorse. It hurts to speak, he writes. His book is constructed from the impressive, vivid energy of poems counting up regrets."
--Lynn Emanuel, author of Transcript of the Disappearance, Exact and Diminishing
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9780822968399 |
| PRICE | $20.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 128 |
Links
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Average rating from 6 members
Featured Reviews
this is like going to a jazz club after only experiencing it through our tiny, wretched technologies. while Elton Glaser's rhythm isn't what i usually gravitate towards in poetry, i still mostly enjoyed the reading experience.
There's only one true art, whatever the medium:
It cuts your heart out
With a blade so keen it feels like love.
several pieces in this are a lament and a celebration of aging, which feels like a gift in an era where people are obsessed with worshipping youth. i think it's neat that poetry is such a perennial practice & that it gives us all a place to create.
In the grammar of my going, there is
No future perfect
Among the small declensions corrupted by time.
there are a lot of witty, striking lines in this that surprised me. i may not relate to most of it, but i appreciate the ways of Glaser's storytelling.
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