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A review by kaitquinn
Truce by Prudence Brooks
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Prudence Brooks’ TRUCE is a gut punch of a debut poetry collection that opens like a bandaid ripped off the poet’s wounds and gulps a little more oxygen with every poem. The experiences of disability, toxic relationships, modern love (“…largely I am content scrubbing the drain / with a long-handled brush”), a poet’s need to write (with all the gritty details, bounding “out of bed to write a series of poems from the perspective of a dildo”), and anxiety (“I am too much to ponder, / too much to hold”) that Brooks lays out in these poems are detailed and specific yet universally evocative. I particularly appreciate the honesty in the poems about love and marriage.
Brooks’ narrative poems are exquisite and immersive, while extended metaphor poems like “Wife as a ‘To Be Read’ Pile” are so well crafted, you forget there’s even a metaphor. From “dandelion afghans” to “most days feel like waiting / for water to boil” to the writer “hunched in crusty, unwashed underwear at your cluttered desk, greasy hair pulled back in an oversized clip,” each image, metaphor, and literary phrase is meticulously crafted to keep the writing fresh, the reader on their toes, and the speaker honest (because “Happiness is a crocheted beige turtleneck. / It’s itchy and a little embarrassing. / I don’t like to wear it everywhere, / but it’s snug and protective / and it comes in my measurements”).
Brooks’ narrative poems are exquisite and immersive, while extended metaphor poems like “Wife as a ‘To Be Read’ Pile” are so well crafted, you forget there’s even a metaphor. From “dandelion afghans” to “most days feel like waiting / for water to boil” to the writer “hunched in crusty, unwashed underwear at your cluttered desk, greasy hair pulled back in an oversized clip,” each image, metaphor, and literary phrase is meticulously crafted to keep the writing fresh, the reader on their toes, and the speaker honest (because “Happiness is a crocheted beige turtleneck. / It’s itchy and a little embarrassing. / I don’t like to wear it everywhere, / but it’s snug and protective / and it comes in my measurements”).