The Cipher, Paperback

Molly Brodak's The Cipher is a deft and unsparing study of the limits of knowledge and belief, and of what solace can be found within those limits. "We stand on the rim of the void," Brodak writes. "We hold our little lamps of knowing / on the rim, and look in." Drawing vividly from mathematics, Christianity, European history, urban life, and the natural world, these poems reveal a vision of contemporary experience that is at once luminous and centered on an unshakable emptiness. Wise, sharp, and sometimes devastating, The Cipher leads us through a world in which little can be trusted, takes its measure, and does not look away.

About author(s):Molly Brodak is the author of a full-length collection of poetry, A Little Middle of the Night; a memoir, Bandit; and three chapbooks. Before her death in 2020, she taught writing and literature at numerous institutions, including Emory University, Savannah College of Art and Design, and Georgia College and State University. An accomplished baker and recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Brodak published poems in such publications as Granta, Guernica, and Poetry.