According to the 17th-century herbarium The Garden of Eden, a 'missel-child' is a mysterious being found beneath a mistletoe-covered tree: a changeling, perhaps. In this first collection from a respected editor, the missel-child is a point of access to various archaeologies of identity, place, and language. The poems deploy syllabics and collage techniques as they explore elegy and myth. Each poem is a space in which language works not only to convey something verbally, but to enable it to be shown as well.
