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philipkenner 's review for:

Jane: A Murder by Maggie Nelson
5.0

Maggie Nelson does it again. This books is a remarkable experiment in what poetry can do. Maggie Nelson weaves dreamscapes, newspaper clippings, research, diary entries, and non-fiction prose into a gruesome analysis of her aunt's murder. I could read this book over and over again. Nelson's voice is like no one else's: simultaneously melancholy, assured, unflinching. It takes the best poetic parts of Something Bright Then Holes, combines them with theories she'd later outline in The Art of Cruelty, and whacks it home with Bluets/Argonauts-style honesty. Read this! Read it twice. Read, rinse, repeat.