Poisons & Antidotes

poems by Andrea L. Fry

ISBN: 978-1-7343884-8-0

Publication August 21

available for early orders

About Poisons & Antidotes

In Poisons & Antidotes, life is inhabited by things that kill us and things that save us. But it’s never black and white, because poisons exist on a continuum, each increment representing some gradation of toxicity. Sometimes poison is clearly recognizable; other times it sits side by side with the innocuous and the borders are blurred. In this collection, poison is a metaphor for the degree of human connectedness to the world. The delirious voices in the poems are trapped in their own subjectivity, unable to see beyond their own strange stories. Just as poison becomes less virulent across the continuum, the poetic voices acquire a gradual awareness of themselves in relation to their world. By the end of the collection, it is as if human experience also exists on a kind of continuum. The expression of this vast range of experience—with all its subtleties, contradictions and ironies—is the antidote to human disconnectedness.

About the author

Andrea Fry was born in Dallas, raised mainly in New York City and the Catskill Mountains, and educated at Union College and Columbia University. She published her first collection of poems, The Bottle Diggers, in May 2017 (Turning Point Press). Her second collection Poisons & Antidotes (Deerbrook Editions) follows now in 2021. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. She was a finalist in Georgia College’s Arts & Letters Prize contest, a semi-finalist in the Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry, and a semi-finalist in River Styx International Poetry Contest. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Annals of Internal Medicine, Ars Medica, Barrow Street, Chiron Review, Cimarron Review, The Comstock Review, Graham House Review, The Lake, Plainsongs, Reed Magazine, Spoon River Poetry Review, Stanford Literary Review, St. Petersburg Review, Writers Resist, and the chapbook Still Against War, Poems for Marie Ponsot.

Praise for Poisons & Antidotes by Andrea L. Fry

Endorsed by Peggy L. Fox

Many of the poems in Andrea Fry’s new collection Poisons & Antidotes elicit a frisson as the poet, clear-eyed and with precise description, depicts plants, situations, or people, where the extremes of beauty and toxicity, allure and danger mingle and test us. As a practicing oncology nurse, she looks at life without sentimentality but with intense compassion, knowing that while there are no simple choices, it is the ambiguity of life that makes us fully human. Using her medical training as well as her extensive knowledge of the natural world, Fry with deft language creates pictures and tells stories that provoke our emotions and linger in the mind.

—Peggy L. Fox, President and Publisher Emerita, New Directions Publishing Corp.

Endorsed by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Caution: this book may upend your expectations about what is fit subject matter for poetry. From mothballs to toxic machismo, Fry takes on the perils that lurk in the dark corners of the world and brings them into the light of frank consideration. These poems have their “arrows of truth” aimed straight at you. They will reshape your thoughts. They may deepen your insights. With larger doses, your imagination may experience an expansion. You may feel yourself craving more and more of the poetic artistry of Andrea L. Fry. You’ve been warned.

—Jeanne Marie Beaumont, author of Letters from Limbo, Burning of the Three Fires

Endorsed by Sarah White

Many of Andrea Fry’s poems have become my favorites, e.g., “The Renderer” and “The Secret.” I don’t know if these are the Poisons or the Antidotes of the collection. I just know they are poems—startling, fluent, and precise. They avoid overdosing us with sweetness, but they are deeply heartening. This poet seems to think (and I agree) that accurate observation is better for us than sweetness. So is humor. So is love.

—Sarah White, author of Iridescent Guest and Wars Don’t Happen Anymore

Endorsed by Daniel P. Sulmasy

The 16th century physician-philosopher Paracelsus famously wrote, “All things are poison. The dose alone makes a thing not a poison.” Advanced practice oncology nurse Andrea Fry is the poetic voice of Paracelsus in the 21st century. Poisons & Antidotes is not just a work of medical humanities. Fry uses her clinical skills to diagnose and treat the human condition. Her dosing is measured, exacting, and precise. At times witty, at times disturbing, these poems span the countryside and the city, exploring innocence and shame, delight and pain, the sublime and the mundane. Fry is an important new voice in American poetry and Poisons & Antidotes is required reading for anyone serious about poetry.

—Daniel P. Sulmasy, MD, PhD

Acting Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University