New Books Network Concetta Principe, "Disorder" (Gordon Hill Press, 2024)
Nov 10, 2025
Concetta Principe, a poet and scholar teaching at Trent University, shares insights on her poetry collection, Disorder. She delves into the complex relationship between mental health and the concept of home, exploring how mental illness can destabilize what should be a sanctuary. Principe discusses her creative process, emphasizing the nuanced power of enjambment and distilled language in conveying emotional truths. She also reflects on how her own experiences, including a childhood diagnosis of BPD, shape her work, illustrating the unique capacity of poetry to express the 'offness' of mental struggles.
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Blueberry Milkshake Moment Sparked Poems
- Concetta Principe traced some poems to a humiliating parenting moment about a blueberry milkshake she forced on her child.
- That experience led her to explore emotional dysregulation through line breaks and shifting meanings in poems.
Line Breaks Mirror Emotional Interference
- Principe uses enjambment so words shift meaning across lines to mirror emotional interference and dysregulation.
- The line breaks act as interruptions that mimic sliding emotions and unstable meanings.
Short Lines Born From Reductive Energy
- Principe read short-line poems about anorexia that she shaped through reductive energy and rage.
- She admits cutting sometimes removed all energy, and some poems were rescued as accidental discoveries.
