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In Kind by Maggie Queeney

Source: Publisher
Paperback, 98 pgs.
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In Kind by Maggie Queeney, 2022 Iowa Poetry Prize winner to be published in May 2023, calls on the goddesses of old to illuminate the struggles of today. She deftly deals with trauma in a way that captures the darkness, the struggle, and the strength to move forward honoring that wound that makes up part of the whole person. In “My Given Name,” “Grit both the middle and the start of it://A bit of sand or shell shard, the hard/Speck of stone or flint or bone or beak—/What cannot be broken back//Into nothing, but offers an ever/Smaller division: this is what made me/What I am: Mar—as in mark, as in wound,//” (pg. 4)

Throughout her poems, transformation is taking place. Everything is unsettled in these poems, and it can be hard to get your bearings, but that’s to be expected given the subject matter (which those who have experienced trauma may want to consider before reading these poems). “We sang ourselves new bodies/the volume of our old hearts/” says the narrator in “Metamorphosis: The Daughters of Minyas Deny Ecstasy, Transform into Bats.”And in “A Charm, A Series of Survivals,” the narrator says, “He wrote his yes into my silence.” (pg. 21) Queeney demonstrates that old myths have something to teach us about punishments meted out to those who fail to conform to society’s expectations. They are unjust and harsh, but they also can become empowering enabling survivors to leverage those punishments as fuel in their own transformations and blossoming.

***(this is a graphic poem)*** Read the title poem, “In Kind,” at underbelly. It’s where I first saw Queeney’s work, and the differences between her draft poem and the final are amazing. Her poem builds from the rapping of the window washers’ ropes against the window, which take on the life of the traumatic memories, and these memories continue to haunt as the time passes and the narrator moves forward in the poem. The poem is not only about the witness and their trauma, but about the trauma of the victim who takes the actions leading to the witness’ trauma. It folds in on itself in a tragic way to remind us that “Nothing, and/no one ever enough.” Nothing could have prevented this tragedy. That’s the most hopeless moment in anyone’s life — knowing nothing you could have done would have saved a person you loved.

In Kind by Maggie Queeney is a deep exploration of trauma and transformation. It never shies away from the harsh realities and emotions of trauma, but it does seek to highlight the wounds can heal and be transformed into something that drives an individual’s healing and purpose. Do not miss this collection; pre-order it now.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Maggie Queeney is the author of In Kind, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, forthcoming in 2023, and settler (Tupelo Press). She is recipient of the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, the Ruth Stone Scholarship, and two IAP Grants from the City of Chicago. Her poems, stories, and hybrid works have been published widely. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University.