"The concept of sympathetic magic sheds light on the belief that the more tightly we clasp our hands in prayer, the more likely our prayers will be heard. With their exquisitely white-knuckled thought and skeins of sinewed music, the poems in Virginia Konchan’s magnificent new collection, Requiem, are reinforced by this same logic. Like crystalline petitions from a life in crisis, the poems display such extraordinary prehensile strength and refusal to let go—of what the poet grieves, loves, hopes for, and deserves—it is impossible to look away from them, or to be left unchanged by them. 'I’m tired of arguing with God,' she confides, and of course she is, but she later swings back with 'I want to exaggerate my movements and my / words, like a keynote speaker on ketamine,' knowing that 'The world won’t fuck off until I’m no longer / in this world.' Dauntless, unquiet, and riddled with more wisdom than anyone should have to bear alone, Requiem is one of the most courageous books I’ve read in a long time, and also one of the best."
― Timothy Donnelly, author of Chariot

Review, Los Angeles Review of Books

Review, America Magazine

Review, Plume Poetry