In a book of short stories, a novel, and a handful of poetry collections over the past decade or so, Montreal writer, editor, and publisher Jon Paul Fiorentino has embraced and celebrated his anxieties, nervous energies, and self-proclaimed “beta-maleness.” Or, at least, the anxieties of the author-­construct known as “Jon Paul Fiorentino,” narrator of his creator’s extremely witty, tight, and fast-paced verse.

Having previously penned what he refers to as “post-prairie” and “post-lyric” verse, Fiorentino’s new collection stops short of identifying itself in opposition to what Tim Lilburn, Don McKay, and Jan Zwicky have called the “poetry of knowing.” Indexical Elegies, which could be described as the “poetry of unknowing,” exemplifies the way Fiorentino’s writing has become a working through of the contradictions surrounding what is known, what might be known, and what can’t be known.

There is no mistaking Fiorentino’s sharp wit and precise vocabulary, which are entirely individual – something far too few writers can claim. His previous collections embraced physical geographies, but his focus has shifted to a fascination with perpetual inner crisis. The poem “Transprairie” ends with the lines, “You are tranced / I am incidental // But in which kind of poetry / do we place our dead dreams?” A page later, “Instructions for Sprouting a Poet in Winnipeg” ends with, “When they forget, come back / or don’t. But always remember: / they will forget you.” Indexical Elegies focuses on uncertainty and the uncentred self, creating a poetry, ultimately, of self-creation. Or is that self un-creation?