From Joan of Arc to Man Ray and Jenny Holzer, Jennifer MacBain Stephens' luminous poems work through the art and warfare of skin and sacrifice, film and fantasy. Urgent and surreal, political and personal, The Messenger is Already Dead is an essential contemporary collection from an acclaimed poet.

"Jennifer MacBain-Stephens' poems in The Messenger is Already Dead hang heavy with history, weaving past and present into a single entity that drips with atmospheric pain felt on a female wavelength. Joan of Arc factors heavily, as our existence is based in part on her...