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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
A gorgeous, moving collection of poetry. Lim creates amazing, evocative imagery, especially using seemingly barren wild places (snow, desert) to tell gripping, emotional stories. I'll be reading this one again.
An amazing collection of poetry; the winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Lim explores the space between our inner and outer selves and the world at large, the unknowability of existence. Stark and beautiful, this collection is highly recommended.
emotional
reflective
As much as a poetry collection is "about" anything, this is about--as the title alludes--the wilderness, both in nature and of the soul. There's quite a bit of engagement with Western Christian religious ideals (what the blurb on the back of the book dubs "the fatalism of American Puritanism"). Some lines from my favorite poems:
"Amor Fati"
Your disbelief is a later novel emerging in the long, long shadow of
an earlier one--
is this the great world, which is whatever is the case?
The sustained helplessness you feel in the long emptiness of days is
matched
by the new suspiciousness and wrath you wake to each morning.
Isn't this a relationship with your death, too, to fall in love with
your inscrutable life?
"Garden Quarrel"
I was always a religious bitch,
all prolepsis and superstition.
Eve ate the apple
she tasted the snake
Adam ate Eve
he tasted the apple
Their hunger had the grandeur
of a famine
....
Adam's a tragedien
Eve opens and closes her legs like a book
No one is waiting for life to begin
"Certainty"
You have always believed these are your themes: fate, the negative
pleasures of dipping oneself in acid.
....
I am not a stupid child. I am not even a child any longer, with
her hesitant, then terrible certainty, that loss is tragic, not only
pointless.
When she is lonely, my mother cooks; and when she is happy, she
knows to hide it.
"Cheval Sombre"
From time to time, I like to learn a severe truth about a familiar
deception: ...
....
At last I shall see my hunger for meaning go free.
The world could be like a faraway planet to which I declare,
Free at last: I shall see my hunger for meaning go.
....
...I like to learn a familiar
truth about a severe deception from time to time.
"Homage to Mistress Bradstreet"
I first thought her a pure fury,
or Last Blues. Or everything in the wide world
that was cold, inscrutable, and beastly.
Sometimes she was innocent of metaphor,
just a girl disappearing with the phone into a closet.
Other times she would lead me to the edge
of my human being, where the meaning would be
seeping away, and say with a flourish, Not yet enjoyed!
and it was a relief to be someone so angry,
to put across the distortions without and within.
A journey like this appears to hold out the promise
of a rescue, an immense life in the formlessness.
"Aubade"
Still, if I were you, I would linger here,
deepen in the rottenness,
learn something about the world, about the desire for safety.
Then, I'd make an instrument from the ruins,
something awfully beautiful.
....
It could be like swallowing a sword and growing surprised
by how good it is, how it opens.
and then maybe to sing out with a throat like that--
saying look,
look how the world has touched me.
"Amor Fati"
Your disbelief is a later novel emerging in the long, long shadow of
an earlier one--
is this the great world, which is whatever is the case?
The sustained helplessness you feel in the long emptiness of days is
matched
by the new suspiciousness and wrath you wake to each morning.
Isn't this a relationship with your death, too, to fall in love with
your inscrutable life?
"Garden Quarrel"
I was always a religious bitch,
all prolepsis and superstition.
Eve ate the apple
she tasted the snake
Adam ate Eve
he tasted the apple
Their hunger had the grandeur
of a famine
....
Adam's a tragedien
Eve opens and closes her legs like a book
No one is waiting for life to begin
"Certainty"
You have always believed these are your themes: fate, the negative
pleasures of dipping oneself in acid.
....
I am not a stupid child. I am not even a child any longer, with
her hesitant, then terrible certainty, that loss is tragic, not only
pointless.
When she is lonely, my mother cooks; and when she is happy, she
knows to hide it.
"Cheval Sombre"
From time to time, I like to learn a severe truth about a familiar
deception: ...
....
At last I shall see my hunger for meaning go free.
The world could be like a faraway planet to which I declare,
Free at last: I shall see my hunger for meaning go.
....
...I like to learn a familiar
truth about a severe deception from time to time.
"Homage to Mistress Bradstreet"
I first thought her a pure fury,
or Last Blues. Or everything in the wide world
that was cold, inscrutable, and beastly.
Sometimes she was innocent of metaphor,
just a girl disappearing with the phone into a closet.
Other times she would lead me to the edge
of my human being, where the meaning would be
seeping away, and say with a flourish, Not yet enjoyed!
and it was a relief to be someone so angry,
to put across the distortions without and within.
A journey like this appears to hold out the promise
of a rescue, an immense life in the formlessness.
"Aubade"
Still, if I were you, I would linger here,
deepen in the rottenness,
learn something about the world, about the desire for safety.
Then, I'd make an instrument from the ruins,
something awfully beautiful.
....
It could be like swallowing a sword and growing surprised
by how good it is, how it opens.
and then maybe to sing out with a throat like that--
saying look,
look how the world has touched me.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
some great stuff and a lot that went over my head
I don't yet connect well enough with poetry to give an adequate rating. I enjoyed reading this book but often struggled to guess what was being said. Periodically truths are presented that resonate with me.
I feel like I’m not artistic enough to fully appreciate the hidden subtext and meanings behind each verse and stanza. I found the poems beautiful and repetition in the themes throughout the book: loss, longing, meaninglessness, wilderness, anger, beauty, and the soul. But it was very hard to understand what the whole of each poem really meant. Where the metaphors lead? The imagery is beautiful and I liked trying to solve the puzzle of words and their meaning, but I never ended up fully understanding any one poem fully.
3 stars
Just a few standout poems. Something about her tone just wasn't connecting for me.
"I wanted to watch the shape / of a movement, / the trajectory of a body as it makes // the shapes that it will in a limited ambit / revolving around an implied center." --from "Rite of Spring"
"Human Interest Story" and "Small Container, Fury" were also favorites.
Just a few standout poems. Something about her tone just wasn't connecting for me.
"I wanted to watch the shape / of a movement, / the trajectory of a body as it makes // the shapes that it will in a limited ambit / revolving around an implied center." --from "Rite of Spring"
"Human Interest Story" and "Small Container, Fury" were also favorites.