“What female figure can point the way out of our political quagmire? If Gertrude Stein attempted to channel Susan B. Anthony as The Mother of Us All, Erin Mizrahi has performed a similar operation on Nancy Pelosi, the mystic, oracular spam machine flooding our psychic inboxes with personalized supplications of such combined banality and urgency that we can only respond with stupefaction. These poetic, often sublime exchanges are as hilarious as they are tragic.”
—Barbara Browning, author of The Gift



"The most intrepid poetic call and response with the sharpest political edges! I mean, WOW! There is no other thing quite like this, and I am a huge fan of Erin Mizrahi, and I, too, want to know, where did the hunger of the butterfly go?”
—CAConrad, author of Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return

“To What End is Erin Mizrahi’s dreamy, hilarious, increasingly vulnerable correspondence with congressperson Nancy Pelosi. It’s a wild chapbook of epistolary poems where “e” responds to Pelosi’s relentless bot-like emails asking for political support, and not merely with an “Unsubscribe.” e’s letters back to Pelosi’s dire, yet generic warnings, her announcement of a “donor sweepstakes,” and her emails peppered with phrases like it’s go time brim with intimacy. e shares their daily misgivings, delightful daydreams, a wish to gift Pelosi a “bouquet of morning light,” and embarrassing memories—I HAVE ALL YOUR BOOKS e gushes when meeting their hero, dodie bellamy. As we read, Nancy seems like she might actually be reading e’s letters. Are we reaching Nancy? Or have we fallen into the ubiquitous sparkling trap of the parasocial relationship? With humor and lush language, To What End examines one of the failures of most politics—empty, tired rhetoric—and reveals how frayed human connection can get and how poignant and vital it is when we achieve it.”
—Sommer Browning, author of Good Actors