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jd_brubaker's review
3.0
This was a very interesting book of poetry. I have to be honest and say that it wasn't really the type of poetry that I'm most likely to enjoy, but I was deeply impressed with the ways in which Van Winckel utilized visuals and text together to create really stunning pieces of poetry.
Every poem in this collection is part of a visual of some kind. They are so seamlessly brought together that at times, I wasn't entirely sure where the poems started. Some of the text in the visuals seem to be inherently part of the image, like names of places on a map, for example. So I had to study these images closely to find the sections of poems which, while interesting, made the process of reading this book somewhat mundane. Admittedly, I am unused to reading visual poetry, so I don't particularly count this against the book or the writing.
In fact, the written parts of the poems were often incredibly beautiful. Most of them are short, not even a full page, but they pack a serious emotional punch. "Around a curve / a dream going too fast / may drop its cargo" (pg 4), or "You wake in the wrong arms" (pg 6), or "You must have married him when you were too young to care" (pg 6) are some of the first sections that drew me in. And the incredible part is that the images and drawings that accompanied these poems didn't immediately sync together. I couldn't really see the connections between the words and the images, but then, that's kind of the point: two people brought together who, perhaps, shouldn't be together would also be difficult to find the connections for.
In so many subtle ways, these poems continue to play out like this. "SYMBIOTICAL: Driving by the building - disheveled in the new century - you feel the bloat of a past tense" (pg 12); "Neither of you is a stranger to the end coming round as the wild willed out" (pg 21); "She'll be either the silence or the cliff face upon which silence rests" (pg 22)...and this is where I realized the point of this collection. As it says on the very first page, "As usual it starts with love." Halfway through the collection and I realized this is a book about love: love found, love broken, love lost, and love reimagined.
The speaker is navigating the shifting course of her relationship with an unnamed man. "Someone soon will / live underground in the place / that belonged to the bones" (pg 35). It's a book filled with poems about the many little (and large) deaths within a relationship and whether or not the speaker and her partner can survive them. "A small vial / will hold the dregs / of you" (pg 47). Or maybe it's many different relationships that the speaker has had with more than one partner. Regardless, there's a sense of loss in the very ordinary ways in which these poems are written and expressed, a magnifying of the ways that heartbreak can be minimized and even ignored depending on how "common" it's considered. "You soar / into the moment / that's a stand-in / for a lifetime" (pg 53).
Ultimately, this is a book that I think requires very special attention. I think it asks to be read more than once. I think there's so much raw honesty in this book that it's easy to overlook its poignancy. And while I didn't give it a fantastic rating (three stars out of five), that was not really because the book is in any way at fault, but rather because I was not in a state of mind or heart to truly grasp what the book is saying. I intend to read it again at some point to see if I can more truly extract its beauties. I do recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a way of accessing poetry that is different and unique.
Every poem in this collection is part of a visual of some kind. They are so seamlessly brought together that at times, I wasn't entirely sure where the poems started. Some of the text in the visuals seem to be inherently part of the image, like names of places on a map, for example. So I had to study these images closely to find the sections of poems which, while interesting, made the process of reading this book somewhat mundane. Admittedly, I am unused to reading visual poetry, so I don't particularly count this against the book or the writing.
In fact, the written parts of the poems were often incredibly beautiful. Most of them are short, not even a full page, but they pack a serious emotional punch. "Around a curve / a dream going too fast / may drop its cargo" (pg 4), or "You wake in the wrong arms" (pg 6), or "You must have married him when you were too young to care" (pg 6) are some of the first sections that drew me in. And the incredible part is that the images and drawings that accompanied these poems didn't immediately sync together. I couldn't really see the connections between the words and the images, but then, that's kind of the point: two people brought together who, perhaps, shouldn't be together would also be difficult to find the connections for.
In so many subtle ways, these poems continue to play out like this. "SYMBIOTICAL: Driving by the building - disheveled in the new century - you feel the bloat of a past tense" (pg 12); "Neither of you is a stranger to the end coming round as the wild willed out" (pg 21); "She'll be either the silence or the cliff face upon which silence rests" (pg 22)...and this is where I realized the point of this collection. As it says on the very first page, "As usual it starts with love." Halfway through the collection and I realized this is a book about love: love found, love broken, love lost, and love reimagined.
The speaker is navigating the shifting course of her relationship with an unnamed man. "Someone soon will / live underground in the place / that belonged to the bones" (pg 35). It's a book filled with poems about the many little (and large) deaths within a relationship and whether or not the speaker and her partner can survive them. "A small vial / will hold the dregs / of you" (pg 47). Or maybe it's many different relationships that the speaker has had with more than one partner. Regardless, there's a sense of loss in the very ordinary ways in which these poems are written and expressed, a magnifying of the ways that heartbreak can be minimized and even ignored depending on how "common" it's considered. "You soar / into the moment / that's a stand-in / for a lifetime" (pg 53).
Ultimately, this is a book that I think requires very special attention. I think it asks to be read more than once. I think there's so much raw honesty in this book that it's easy to overlook its poignancy. And while I didn't give it a fantastic rating (three stars out of five), that was not really because the book is in any way at fault, but rather because I was not in a state of mind or heart to truly grasp what the book is saying. I intend to read it again at some point to see if I can more truly extract its beauties. I do recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a way of accessing poetry that is different and unique.
vulpasvulpas's review
5.0
oop - looks like goodreads added a cover photo!
good thing, how horrible the default logo looks in place of the actual cover for this actually magical, stunning, visually-charged versification. This is poetic excellence.
Visual poetry is like gunpowder to my normally dormant creative reserves. I love the juxtaposition that text and texture make when they're combined, how much the verses demand of your senses. It's arresting, motivating, alluring. I could not recommend it enough.
good thing, how horrible the default logo looks in place of the actual cover for this actually magical, stunning, visually-charged versification. This is poetic excellence.
Visual poetry is like gunpowder to my normally dormant creative reserves. I love the juxtaposition that text and texture make when they're combined, how much the verses demand of your senses. It's arresting, motivating, alluring. I could not recommend it enough.
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