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mepresley's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
5.0
This is the second book I've read by Nuernberger, and I also gave The End of Pink 5 stars (and called it "literal, actual perfection"). Because I did not write a more detailed review of The End of Pink but wanted to think about a comparison between the collections, I've resorted to a Poets.org review, which calls the collection "a visit to the end of innocence and an entry into the war-zone years of getting pregnant, giving birth, and early motherhood. The poet speaks this testimony through her fascination for nineteenth-century medical arcana and the various languages of science. On her own life she sneaks in wild testimony: there is blood and the memory of blood on nearly every page....Soon we are let in on harsh facts: a heartbreaking miscarriage, which is chronicled in a nonfiction version (pain, blood, body, burial), and also a fantastic version, in which the gone hoped-for child is now a tiny white peacock living behind the poet’s ear. There are also elf-wives and healing potions made of owl eyes."
This collection also mixes extremely personal poems (about marital problems, a few that reference --and one that focuses closely--on the miscarriage, being a mother) and poems that are more about her fascination with history (here, 17th & 18th century botany), plus some engagement with artists in other mediums. There is less blood, certainly.
My favorite poems were "The Petty Politics of the Thing," "When We Dead Awaken," "Whale-Mouse," "The Bird of Paradise," "Things I Did Today Besides," "Hexagenia Limbata," and "This Is Your Mother Calling."
"The Petty Politics of the Thing"
...I don't know if it is
the cat or the rabbit that keeps so silent.
Sometimes in the course of a day I hear
the cat-rabbit in the back of my mind whisper,
"I will fuck you up." Oh, I love her. I love her
for how real she is. She can see through
even the most tangled bramble of rhetoric.
....
...Hush little cat-rabbit,
I say. Thank you for reminding me, little cat-
rabbit, I say, it's enough just to know.
In that place I'm sad I'll have to die for a life
that was only ever a metaphor. ...
"When We Dead Awaken"
The wind on the bluffs of everything we didn't
do felt crisp and clear, but down below on the gray beach
sand fleas would swarm you...
....
If you feel like you're in love, you have to either remember
or forget that a feeling can only last a little while.
What you should do with your little while, I can't say.
....
When you jump in--and you have to jump in--the cold
stops your heart for a second and then it comes back
in a seizure of beating that makes your vision blur.
....
...They call her Lady
of the Lake and she haunts the place as a ghost or a witch
or a very old god who still remembers how to want and how
to grab what she wants with the ice of her hungry fist.
....
...I have but also
do not have the rest of you. I don't see how we can be
longer than a story to each other. It's not me. It's the waves.
My arms are so tired, I just need to float for awhile. ...
"Whale-Mouse" [about Carl Linnaeus]
...I can't carry a feeling this heavy and beautiful for someone
by myself. I have to give it to you.
This collection also mixes extremely personal poems (about marital problems, a few that reference --and one that focuses closely--on the miscarriage, being a mother) and poems that are more about her fascination with history (here, 17th & 18th century botany), plus some engagement with artists in other mediums. There is less blood, certainly.
My favorite poems were "The Petty Politics of the Thing," "When We Dead Awaken," "Whale-Mouse," "The Bird of Paradise," "Things I Did Today Besides," "Hexagenia Limbata," and "This Is Your Mother Calling."
"The Petty Politics of the Thing"
...I don't know if it is
the cat or the rabbit that keeps so silent.
Sometimes in the course of a day I hear
the cat-rabbit in the back of my mind whisper,
"I will fuck you up." Oh, I love her. I love her
for how real she is. She can see through
even the most tangled bramble of rhetoric.
....
...Hush little cat-rabbit,
I say. Thank you for reminding me, little cat-
rabbit, I say, it's enough just to know.
In that place I'm sad I'll have to die for a life
that was only ever a metaphor. ...
"When We Dead Awaken"
The wind on the bluffs of everything we didn't
do felt crisp and clear, but down below on the gray beach
sand fleas would swarm you...
....
If you feel like you're in love, you have to either remember
or forget that a feeling can only last a little while.
What you should do with your little while, I can't say.
....
When you jump in--and you have to jump in--the cold
stops your heart for a second and then it comes back
in a seizure of beating that makes your vision blur.
....
...They call her Lady
of the Lake and she haunts the place as a ghost or a witch
or a very old god who still remembers how to want and how
to grab what she wants with the ice of her hungry fist.
....
...I have but also
do not have the rest of you. I don't see how we can be
longer than a story to each other. It's not me. It's the waves.
My arms are so tired, I just need to float for awhile. ...
"Whale-Mouse" [about Carl Linnaeus]
...I can't carry a feeling this heavy and beautiful for someone
by myself. I have to give it to you.
"The Bird of Paradise" [about Maria Sybylla Merian, 17th c. botanist & first ecologist]
I like the defiance of the plants. They are
at odds with themselves--they do one thing
and also do its exact opposite. You can treat
the burn of stinging nettle with a compress
of stinging nettle. One does of a plant
will save a life and another will end it.
With tweezers and a microscope you can see
how any bouquet is a collection of revolutions.
....
...There is a point at which giving so much benefit of the doubt becomes
another exploitation and the conditional tense
just a grammar for the naive or the lying. ...
....
There is an old man who will not stop asking
why. Our ears will not stop ringing with it.
There is an answer that is a silence that grows
longer and deeper as you peer into it.
I like the defiance of the plants. They are
at odds with themselves--they do one thing
and also do its exact opposite. You can treat
the burn of stinging nettle with a compress
of stinging nettle. One does of a plant
will save a life and another will end it.
With tweezers and a microscope you can see
how any bouquet is a collection of revolutions.
....
...There is a point at which giving so much benefit of the doubt becomes
another exploitation and the conditional tense
just a grammar for the naive or the lying. ...
....
There is an old man who will not stop asking
why. Our ears will not stop ringing with it.
There is an answer that is a silence that grows
longer and deeper as you peer into it.
"Things I Did Today Besides"
...I knew when I didn't leave my husband
right that minute I would come to think I was crazy
to have thought I wanted to. Which was the worst part
of not doing it. And now here I am, looking on the past
with the serene composure of a woman learning to like
her compromises ...
....
I could envy her the finely-etched mulberry branches
lacing this box of pleasure she found in her otherwise gray
convent of a life, but I do not. I've changed my mind
about the whole thing. How stupid must you be to not
know that pretty boxes are a dime a dozen? You can fill
your whole house with them, if that what you want.
"Hexagenia Limbata"
...to help
me forget how earlier today I read the transcripts
of that poor girl's testimony against a Harvard-bound
ambassador's son and how she just couldn't believe
what was happening to her was happening to her,
so she was quiet when he did it and tried for two days
after to believe she had asked for it and there was
nothing to report. Because how do we live in the world
if it wasn't our fault? Easier if we should have just
said or done something different. ...
"This Is Your Mother Calling"
...After,
whether you'd do it all again, that's not for me to say,
but if it were, I'd go for the roachy one-bedroom
of what was it all for anyway? You can keep a little
of all that old mercy, but at least break a lamp before
you say, "I understand your point of view." ...
....
I can't recommend it, but if it's going to
happen, you may as well know. When it does, I suggest
you sit down on the stoop of wherever your life is
and let yourself have a good cry. I recommend you go
ahead and light a cigarette if you're in the mood, even if
that big kid of yours sees you setting such a bad example.
A lucky child will see much worse before it's all done.
xvarenah's review against another edition
3.0
This is the book of a poet, we're not facing Rupi Kaur-esque sentences, considering this: Nuernberger's poetry wasn't insightful, I really like the playfulness and, overall, good sense of humor. It was the anecdotical and narrative-driven-ness that didn't fully sit well with me. Nuerenberger has good command of the language, and even if I gave it 3 stars, I'd recommend this book anytime to anyone invested in the quirks of this kind of poetry.
kyliegellatly's review against another edition
5.0
https://www.theadroitjournal.org/2020/05/28/the-secretly-radical-revolution-of-flowers-a-review-of-kathryn-nuernbergers-rue/amp/
I savored this book in a way I rarely do: one poem at a time. I read one each morning and it interlaced with everything throughout the day. I recommend this book very very highly.
I savored this book in a way I rarely do: one poem at a time. I read one each morning and it interlaced with everything throughout the day. I recommend this book very very highly.
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