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mepresley's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Love the title, love the cover. I found this collection a bit more abstract and harder to wrap my head around than the other poetry I've read, but overall enjoyed the collection very much. It's held together by a frank narrative voice dripping with rage, desperation, violence, and desire.
My favorite poems were "Your Childhood," "Practically an Orphan," and "Catatonia," with honorable mentions to "Cloud Elegy," "Gaslight," "Lying My Head Off," "Fragment of the Head of a Queen," "A Brief Attachment," "The Unfortunates," "Stone Fruit," "A Fainting Couch," and "Flood Museum."
From "Your Childhood"
...I picked it up hitchhiking: its mouth tugged on
a joint as it bragged that it wanted you dead. It got off
wherever I planned to head, said anywhere was where
it planned to end up....
Your childhood prying open a can, your childhood
waking you because it's afraid of the dark. For years.
Of the yellowing polar bear at that dank zoo that will
not stop banging its head against the concrete floe of
its habitat, you alone know the briny depths of its woe.
From "Practically An Orphan"
This is not about them, but what happens to them.
Pick a brick, a plastic bag, a gun, or any instrument
heavy with intent, since you are heavy in intent on
forgetting them. This is not about their good faces,
or about how it will happen while they sleep. ...
Gravity kills, not us. How else can a hammer fall?
There's more than one way to cut a person off mid
speech. Open the refrigerator of the heart and sniff--
something gone bad in the blood....
From "Catatonia"
If I see him again, how shall I know him? Mouth first
a jewel, then a jeweled scabbard, his knife then running
smooth against my throat. Spray of wisteria, spray of
the slashed jugular petaling out its roses along the walk.
....
...Shall I replaced it with the head
of a horse, make myself a centaur in reverse? Shall I call
the fire department, ask them to ladder it down? Must
I watch the twigs combing my black hair until the starts
are thumbed shut by dawn and my startled eyes close?
My favorite poems were "Your Childhood," "Practically an Orphan," and "Catatonia," with honorable mentions to "Cloud Elegy," "Gaslight," "Lying My Head Off," "Fragment of the Head of a Queen," "A Brief Attachment," "The Unfortunates," "Stone Fruit," "A Fainting Couch," and "Flood Museum."
From "Your Childhood"
...I picked it up hitchhiking: its mouth tugged on
a joint as it bragged that it wanted you dead. It got off
wherever I planned to head, said anywhere was where
it planned to end up....
Your childhood prying open a can, your childhood
waking you because it's afraid of the dark. For years.
Of the yellowing polar bear at that dank zoo that will
not stop banging its head against the concrete floe of
its habitat, you alone know the briny depths of its woe.
From "Practically An Orphan"
This is not about them, but what happens to them.
Pick a brick, a plastic bag, a gun, or any instrument
heavy with intent, since you are heavy in intent on
forgetting them. This is not about their good faces,
or about how it will happen while they sleep. ...
Gravity kills, not us. How else can a hammer fall?
There's more than one way to cut a person off mid
speech. Open the refrigerator of the heart and sniff--
something gone bad in the blood....
From "Catatonia"
If I see him again, how shall I know him? Mouth first
a jewel, then a jeweled scabbard, his knife then running
smooth against my throat. Spray of wisteria, spray of
the slashed jugular petaling out its roses along the walk.
....
...Shall I replaced it with the head
of a horse, make myself a centaur in reverse? Shall I call
the fire department, ask them to ladder it down? Must
I watch the twigs combing my black hair until the starts
are thumbed shut by dawn and my startled eyes close?
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