This book, which was selected by poet John Hodgen for the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, ranges across rural Florida and Georgia as well as Los Angeles and New York City, include considerations of homesickness, memory, music, alcohol, love, and loss. With a voice at once inquisitive and prescient, Minor meditates on consumption, vice, homesickness, memory, family, and the landscape. Minor’s writing is unerringly lyric and blooming with elegant charm and keen description. This book is an alchemy of fortitude in the face of despair and all the transformative possibility that comes with the hope for a better future.

“This is the magnificent story of ruining things, weeping bottles, flying tuna-fish sandwiches,” writes Minor in her panoramic debut that explores setting (mostly Florida), relationships with men and women, illness, friendship, depression, and suicidal ideation. Its dedication “to women everywhere who refuse to give up their dreams” signals the collection’s interest in resilience. Readers will enjoy Minor’s fierce, unabashed voice.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Flowers as Mind Control is a lyrically compelling collection of poetry written by Laura Minor, the winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, selected by John Hodgen. Minor’s debut collection is a truly original compilation of loneliness and wanderlust with meditations ranging from music and alcohol to homesickness and loss.”
—Jessica Blandford, Southern Review of Books, March 2022