A poetry collection by Annie Hendrix
Misanthrope: A mixture of urgency and humor
Felix: At the early age of three I realised I was a misanthrope even though I didn't quite know who that was, however, by five I'd worked out the opposite: a philanthrope, which isn't a real word, by the way, because English doesn't believe unconditional love for humanity deserves its own noun. Alas! But do we need it, philosophically speaking? My cat, for example, has never needed a word for it. She just does it, my cat loves me! Regardless, Annie Hendrix found the words, and they're in this collection.
Betsy: My dear Felix, I wouldn’t for a moment disagree with what you stipulated since I do believe English speakers may co-opt a Greek noun to describe unconditional love for mankind, Agape. Since it’s all Greek to me, I concur. Annie’s poetry collection expresses so much. One can only absorb the free yet selectively chosen words and dwell in our emotive and intellectual understanding of them. We certainly could agree, no matter our individual proclivities towards mankind, that Misanthrope can touch our spirit.
Compassion and connection remain the ultimate act of resistance in Annie Hendrix’s debut poetry collection, Misanthrope. Written in free verse and invented forms, these powerful and at times playful poems meditate on technology, interpersonal relationships, and humanity’s place in the natural world.
Author’s Note:
The title of Misanthrope, much like Molière’s comedy, is a subversion. It’s a call for acceptance and celebration of each other, of culture, and of the natural world. Equally, it’s a reflection of my lived experience and of my practice as a free verse poet; it’s a simple presentation of my love of arranging words on the page and of enjoying the inherent musicality of colloquial language. I have intentionally attempted work that is concise, clear, and accessible at a time when academic poetry tends to strive for maximal aesthetic complexity and obfuscation of meaning. In other words: I hope I have been clear, and I hope you enjoy the poems!
Reviews:
“Thought this was a wonderful book of poetry. Hendrix writes very lyrically and the verses felt they were mosaics, patterns that fit together in many different ways. It was complex but not dense. Very good collection.” — Dan Araujo
“Great collection, very musical and full of genuine emotion and humour. The recurring feeling was, for me at least, a mix of irony, tenderness and melancholy, which is rare to find. Favourite poem: Newsprint” — Vanya Bagaev
“My copy turned up this morning, and I’ve just sat and read through the whole thing twice. ‘For the Record’, ‘The Alley’ and ‘The Internet’ are God-tier poems.” — Joe Nada
Felix: I'm fairly sure Annie has solved the mind-body problem and nobody in philosophy has noticed because it's in poetry collection and not a four hour podcast or a 10k word substack essay or whatever’s philosophy these days, and I'm not being hyperbolic, I'm being phenomenological, which is a word that actually exists and means "I'm right but I can't prove it," which is also what poetry is, which is also what my cat’s thinking when she stares at me (I know that but can’t prove it), so really we've come full circle — my cat loves me i.e. humanity! Is my cat a philanthrope? If you don't know what anything I say means, don't worry, neither do most people, just buy the book.
Betsy: I didn’t know you have a cat, but yes! Buy the book.
The power of English is that philanthrope now exists because you deemed it so. Congratulations on the book.
And thank you for using all of the pictures!