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sloatsj's review
For this collection, the poet wrote acrostic poems using the first lines of selected Emily Dickinson poems. It’s a cool concept and she pulls it off, combining rather rich, sometimes old-style language with a little sexiness and the modernity of leaf blowers, golf carts and space men.
jenvcampbell's review
5.0
The perfect balance of old and new. On her 29th birthday, Rebecca Hazelton decided to take the 1st line of every 29th Emily Dickinson poem, and use it as an acrostic to write her own poems. She said that this helped her engage with Dickinson's poems better; the themes unravelling in her own work. This book is just beautiful. It made me want to read it inside a cave, or under the sea; it has such magical qualities: 'The wind was a man who carried me / high over the world in his elbow crook / Eggshell he called me, fingernail girl / wrapping me tight in his breast pocket.' None of these lines feel forced as an acrostic; the words slot into place with such precision. Every word is exact. 'This is pretty, pretty your sleeping body, / hair shocked out against the pillow, / eyes closed, lashes like a girl's. / Men in sleep aren't boys, but aren't / exactly men, either - they soften / revert to animal, / curled up beast.' I think my favourite poem (though it's hard to choose, and no doubt I'll change my mind later), is 'The Nearest Dream Recedes, Unrealised', which begins: 'Then we set up a sort of camp beneath the sea, / hung shells stuffed with phosphorous plankton, / emitting a cool green light - by which to read.'
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