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Dancehall by Tim Stobierski

September 14, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 90 pgs.
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Dancehall by Tim Stobierski, touring with Poetic Book Tours, is a collection in a five-act play format with poems that crescendo into an unforgettable love story. Stobierski’s poems are tender and full of emotion. In Act One, you’ll be enchanted by “Just as Sparrows,” in which a lover is compared to sparrows looking through the grass for that perfect morsel — holding the narrator’s heart gently but for what seems like just a moment. In that moment, a heart is captured and the journey of love begins.

And like a word (pg. 8)

I ache to be spoken--
to cling to your lip
and fall from your tongue--

to crack in your voice
and catch in your throat.

Speak me into being.

There is longing, desire, love, and so much wonderment at attachment and love. The opening act is like that initial rush of lovers who have eyes only for each other. It will bring you back to those early days.

“Press into me/as night/presses/into a canyon.//” says the narrator in “Want.” (pg. 20) We’re moving into the full love of this relationship and navigating the early relationship awkwardness. The narrator is opening up to this feeling of love and discovering the depths of it, nearly losing himself but reveling in it. But of course, what relationship is complete without disagreement?

Don’t we all try to bend and fit in a narrative not our own, make ourselves smaller and appease our lovers. “If I am too much to hold,/fold me in half/so I will fit in your arms.//” (“Crease”, pg. 30) Readers are now moving into the maturing of a relationship and realizations that all is not paradise, but the love still binds the narrator to his lover. In “If this is it,” the narrator says, “rest your head upon my chest/one last time,/and I will run my fingers/through the soft hairs/at the nape of your neck.//” (pg. 33)

Dancehall by Tim Stobierski is a beautiful collection full of tenderness and ache, and the poems will invest you in this love story from the start. Stobierski’s lines and images are endearing and heartbreaking. Don’t miss this collection.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Tim Stobierski writes about relationships. His work explores universal themes of love, lust, longing, and loss — presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including the Connecticut River Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Grey Sparrow. His first book of poetry, Chronicles of a Bee Whisperer, was published by River Otter Press in 2012.

To pay the bills, he is a freelance writer and content strategist focused on the world of finance, investing, fintech, insurance, and software. In his professional writing, he prides himself on his ability to help the reader understand complicated subjects easily, a quality that informs his poetry.

He is also the founder and editor of Student Debt Warriors, a free resource for college students, graduates, and parents who are struggling to make sense of the complex world of student loans. Follow Tim on Instagram.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson

September 13, 2023 by

Source: Gift
Paperback, 100 pgs.
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Inheritance by Taylor Johnson, who is Takoma Park, Maryland’s Poet Laureate, is deceptively quiet. It opens with a poem, “Since I Quit That Internet Service,” that speaks to community and finding your voice. It is such a hopeful beginning to a collection that delves into the depths of our nation’s capitalism, what role gender-ization plays in society and how it forces us to view ourselves as something we seem to have no control over, and the pressures of race, a societal box to check, and all its baggage.

All of these poems ask us to carefully consider the word “inheritance” whether that be what we’ve carried from our families, our DNA, what we’ve been given by relatives after they pass, and so on. Johnson, for example, widens his definition of “inheritance” to include the spaces between us and strangers and the slight nods of acknowledgement we give and receive in passing. Johnson’s poems are witnesses and participants at the same time — we all can relate to that if we take the time to pause and listen, watch, and consider the complex world and our participation in it.

Chiaroscuro (pg. 42)

Whereas I come into the into to talk with my shadow.
From you I've not hid my face.

For in the morning I make, and am made by you:
beautiful projection, boy in the mirror, boy in my mind.
I separate my flesh from my flesh to become more
like you, to drown in your holdings.

O young lord of my desire, you are the light
I ride toward, I run from. I eat less and avoid
being hailed. Anonymous interstitial prince
of my undoing, redeemer of my yes, I want

to grow into you, and then abandon your
imprecise naming. I am bequeathed violence—
your inheritance — and your rough glamour.

I am made to tarry, here, with you,
thus illumined by your tenuous light.

Inheritance by Taylor Johnson is a collection to read aloud and read again as you listen to each word, envision each image, and hear the truth of life and its complexity. We try so hard to simplify a world that is far more layered than our brains can comprehend, perhaps we should just live it, not try to wrangle it into submission.

RATING: Cinquain

photo by S*an D. Henry-Smith

About the Poet:

Taylor Johnson is from Washington, D.C. He is the author of Inheritance (Alice James Books, 2020), winner of the 2021 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The Baffler, Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a recipient of the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging Writers from Lambda Literary. Taylor was the inaugural 2022 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. He is the Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland. With his wife, Elizabeth Bryant, Taylor curates the Green Way Reading Series at People’s Book in Takoma Park.

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What Follows by H.R. Webster

August 16, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 70 pgs.
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What Follows by H.R. Webster is a debut collection of poems that shed light on the darkness and the scars left in the wake of turbulence. The opening poem, “What Follows,” sets the tone immediately: “Every house I’ve ever lived in was filled with snakes./” and “The snakes I live with now leave/quieter marks.” (pg. 3)

These poems try to make sense of the darkness in the world, the men who catcall at every woman and the boys that love the danger of the flips and tumbles of the skate park. What follows that darkness, what’s left behind? Shame? Heartbreak? Desire? It’s not the harm or the dark emotions but the glimmer of light that remains, the hope of beauty and satisfaction. “Look at the stain/in the diamond. It’s not the thing itself,/but what’s left of the light that was swallowed./” (“Occlusion”, pg. 36)

What Follows by H.R. Webster explores the space in between the before and after trauma, reminding us that there is some light in the darkness. Her poems use language that doesn’t focus directly on the trauma. The poems state what the trauma isn’t, outlining the pain with pain that is easier to understand. Readers will learn so much in these poems, through the poet’s dark humor and explorations of deep desires and lashing out. It’s a deeply human collection that reflects on our darkest thoughts and feelings — many of which we bury deep.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

H.R. Webster has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, 32Poems, Muzzle, and Ecotone.

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The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron

August 15, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 62 pgs.
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The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, is a debut poetry collection that brings readers on a journey of exploration in the natural world to find not empty spaces that must be filled, but spaces that have hidden treasures. In the opening poem, “Beautiful Trees,” readers are shown the dead branches and passed fruit and leaves that have yet to fall, but as the narrator takes us into the earth, we are shown how the rain seeps down and the roots have dug deep and continue to do so. It’s a living being beneath the surface of the earth and it is beautiful.

One of my favorite poems in the collection is “Empty Attics,” in which dusty items sit and wait in the dark forgotten places. Imagine all those souvenirs bought and hidden away, tarnishing in the darkness. “our treasures/memories unlit/by such neglected bulbs/still failing to see ourselves/illuminated/as dust settles again/on the balconies of our mind/” (pg.25) Here we see attics filled with trinkets and memory, but they are rarely accessed. Does this mean we are unknown? Are we in darkness even about ourselves? Efron is showing us the introspection he himself is engaged in through his poems, and on this journey with him, we are exploring the identities of ourselves.

Another poem that will capture the storyteller and listener in all of us is “Rooms Without Nightlights” as Efron takes us inside the dark bedrooms of our past and the fairytales we know by heart. He sheds light on the shadows that scared us from sleeping and kept us on edge in our basements. He asks us to leave those “ruffled sheets/to tend to their own ghosts” but also to be wary of the “inviting masks/fooled only by our children/framed on forbidden trading cards/in palmed devices.” Vigilance can be a tricky skill.

The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron allows readers to fall into the cracks and explore the emotions of our childish nightmares against the backdrop of more adult concerns. In many ways, we are looking for ourselves in that darkness and seeking the truth of it before the door of finality closes on us. What is in those spaces between?

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Louis Efron is a poet and writer who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, POETiCA REViEW, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Literary Yard, New Reader Magazine and over 100 other national and global publications. He is also the author of five books, including The Unempty Spaces Between, How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love; Purpose Meets Execution; Beyond the Ink; as well as the children’s book What Kind of Bee Can I Be?

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Exits by Stephen C. Pollock

July 20, 2023 by

Source: Poet
Paperback, 54 pgs.
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Exits by Stephen C. Pollock, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, focuses on the ultimate exit we all must make and speaks to the fear and acceptance of our mortality. The collection includes not only poems, but also photographs and artwork that inspired some of the poems. They complement one another well.

The opening poem, “Arachindaea: Line Drawings,” and accompanying photograph of a spider in its web begin a symphony to life’s unexpected beauty: “your finest threads are strung with pearls/and you, a brooch with a clasp./” But then darkness comes when we “magnify the shiny spheres/to divine that each conceals/a miniature, an image/of struggling wings, of life undone.” (pg. 1) The poem is multi-layered in its exploration of the predator-prey dynamic, demonstrating the beauty alongside the ultimate demise of the prey. The strings of the web begin a tune, one that cannot be escaped.

Throughout this collection, Pollock looks to nature for not only music, but also beauty in mortality. The flowers in “Seeds” give up everything to insects and birds, breeding new life from their own deaths, ending a lifecycle but also beginning it anew. “So many seeds were borne by each alone,/so many lost with loss of those I’ve known.//” the narrator says. It’s the mortality and the remembrance of those gone before us that enables them to live on, like the seeds from the dying flowers in our garden.

Through a variety of forms and styles, Pollock takes us on a breathtaking journey that reminds us that through the sadness and finality of death and mortality, there’s also things that live on. There are pieces of us in other lives and other places that we’ve touched. In many ways Exits by Stephen C. Pollock is a hopeful collection — a collection looking to provide peace.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Stephen C. Pollock is a recipient of the Rolfe Humphries Poetry Prize and a former associate professor at Duke University. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, including “Blue Unicorn,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Live Canon Anthology,” “Pinesong,” “Coffin Bell,” and “Buddhist Poetry Review.” “Exits” is his first book.

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Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova

July 12, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 84 pgs.
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Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova pushes the boundaries of reality, incorporating what I would classify as some magical realism in her poems. A prime example of this is the opening poem, “The Woman Who Wanted a Child,” in which a woman wants a child so much that she can no longer sleep at night, visiting the marsh and watching the terns until she too becomes pregnant with a tern and must learn to feed her. “The Lost Mommy” is another delightful fairy tale she creates, woven from tales we all know.

Karapetkova’s poems are magical and imaginative, transporting readers to new places, while at the same time, those places seem familiar. It’s the emotional touch stone of wanting and of something missing that reaches us.

Parts of Speech (pg. 11)

Tomorrow, I will build a universe
of ink and write you subject to my pen,
controlling all you do and think in verse
and changing every loss of mine to win;
for instance, I could start with adjectives,
crossing out the old that I've become,
replacing dull with lovely, or I'd give
your careless words a turn to grateful ones.
And then for nouns -- inscribe your apathy
as care with but a movement of my wrist,
to trade distaste for passion, transform me
into she, and thus by you as her be kissed.
Or better than this wordy love-retrieving
I'll simply stop all verbs, keep you from leaving.

In a variety of poetic forms, including sonnets, Karapetkova is saying those words we might one day say or words we wish we had said to departing partners, almost children, and even our loved ones who are still with us. The collection is alive with wanting and loss, but also hope and love. Words We Might One Day Say by Holly Karapetkova is a storyteller who can transport you to magical places, only to ground you in reality like in “Cadaver Room,” where a cadaver is “an empty house” or in “Love and the National Defense” where a nation is incapable of protecting itself against the infection of love.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Holly Karapetkova is the Poet Laureate of Arlington County and the recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of two books of poetry, Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the 2010 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Poetry Award, and Towline, winner of the 2016 Vern Rutsala Poetry Contest from Cloudbank Books. Her current manuscript projects, Still Life With White and Planter’s Wife grapple with the deep wounds left by our history of racism, slavery, and environmental destruction. She is also the author of over 20 books for children. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English and Comparative Literature and teaches in the Department of Literature and Languages at Marymount University.

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The Last Girl by Rose Solari

July 5, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 68 pgs.
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The Last Girl by Rose Solari has a dream-like, otherworldly quality as the poems move from past to present, reality to dreams, memory to heartache. Setting the stage is “Tree House of the Dream Child,” in which we are gathered up to see a tree house that was build long ago by unknown persons but if we’re stealthy enough and believe in the unseen, we can receive a visit from the “dream child.” In this poem, elements are conspiring, the world is wild, and as readers, we are entering Solari’s world where Persephone comes back to earth as a father leaves it.

In “Math and the Garden,” Solari captures grief in a way that few can articulate – through those moments when parents try to impart advice to children who are half-listening, half-dreaming. A tough task depending on the age of the child, but even as adults, we tend to half-listen to our parents.

In “Another Shore,” we experience imagination first hand when apples become part of a schoolroom and a pan of mud becomes quicksand for another adventure. There are prayers and dreams, and day-dreaming throughout the poems as Solari explores the what-ifs of alternative life paths and relationships — the “other” lives we could have led. “You could always//come back. Those are the breaks, your mother would say/if she heard you now, and she’d be right.” (From “Somewhere Between Four and Five A.M.”, pg. 40-1)

There is a deep mourning in The Last Girl by Rose Solari, but there’s also the breath of imagination and memory, a reveling in the past and the what could have been. Delve into this dream-like exploration of loss and imagination, visit island paradises, abandoned tree houses, and so much more.

RATING: Cinquain

About the Poet:

Rose Solari is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, The Last Girl, Orpheus in the Park, and Difficult Weather; the one-act play, Looking for Guenevere, in which she also performed; and a novel, A Secret Woman. She has lectured and taught writing workshops at many institutions, including Arizona State University’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing; the University of Maryland, College Park; St. John’s College, Annapolis; the Jung Society of Washington; and The Centre for Creative Writing at Oxford University’s Kellogg College.

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Sex Work and Other Sins by Julianne King

June 15, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 62 pgs.
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Sex Work and Other Sins by Julianne King is a slim collection of poems and essays about the resistance of women against the societal mechanisms that seek to push them into poverty when they have children to care for with little help from the fathers. There are a number of themes about family and trauma throughout the collection, but it is also about resilience and empowering yourself to prioritize what means the most in your life.

The opening poem in the collection, “this is an attack on my family.”, lays out that trauma:

this is an attack on my family.

in this family
we are not
the safe harbor
providing shelter and healing wounds
we are the tempest
prepare to be thrashed
eviscerated
clawed and sharpened
until you are ragged
and worn
in exactly the way 
we are
the way we recognize
in the way we find least
threatening

There are a lot of misconceptions about sex work in that people assume the women are promiscuous, are uneducated, and are immoral. But what happens when you look deeper into the reality of their lives and the struggles they face in a capitalistic society where money rules everything? How do you care for your children if your husband leaves you and you have bills to pay and mouths to feed? Would you choose working 3 jobs to pay the bills and never see your children or work one job you hate so you can earn enough to live and see your children grow?

cardinal red.

....

i prayed for my soul to
separate like a cardinal
and perch on the ceiling fan
to watch over me
to sing out a warning if he moved
to kill me
i guess it helped
that i already wanted to die
maybe he would do it for me or

...

Don’t think the entire collection is gloomy and angst-y. There are some humorous moments, particularly in my favorite poem, “dust.” Sex Work and Other Sins by Julianne King will have readers sitting back on their heels with its visceral emotion and anger at those of us who sit outside and judge. Many women often judge others until they are forced into situations where desperation causes them to make the same decisions they decried. Some women are not strong enough to fight for survival, while others are. What is the sin? Perhaps it is the judging of others.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Julianne King (she/her) is the author of Bible Belt Revolution. Her poetry has been featured in the South Florida Poetry Journal, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing, and on Rattlecast Open Mic. King’s work focuses on mental health, surviving Christianity, reclaiming the body, and post-traumatic growth. She lives just outside of St. Louis, Missouri with her children and chosen family.

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Lilies on the Deathbed of Etain and Other Poems by Oisin Breen

June 13, 2023 by

Source: the poet
Paperback, 52 pgs.
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Lilies on the Deathbed of Etain and Other Poems by Oisin Breen catapults the Irish mythology of Étaín into a context that is both modern and from days of old. A maiden who is turned by a jealous first wife of Midir into a pool of water and some other objects, including a fly, before being reborn 1,000+ years later. Breen has clearly chosen this figure for the story of death and rebirth, as there is recurring imagery and sadness throughout regarding death, lingering ailments, and enduring love.

In the opening lines, he tell us, “All this ends with the hocking of soft skin in loose folds.” Death is never the same, “For each of us it differs,” he reminds us. And this can be true, especially when taking into account how we live. Have we been kind? Have we cared for family? Have we lusted? “But our death will come in a single reckoning,” he says. We often do not expect to die when we do. Our expiration is unknown to us, no matter how healthy we try to live or how much we turn to modern medicine and other tools to extend that expiration date.

When we come to the second section of the title poem we find that Étaín is traveling with a companion in a small chamber from which she can move in and out of freely. We can only imagine what it is to be her, so small, so trapped, but yet free. She has not returned to her true form, but she is still a companion. This situation is equal parts comforting and terrifying. But aren’t all relationships like this?

Breen is providing a journey in myth to illustrate the human condition as it stands now, even without our ability to utilize real magic and turn people into pools of water. We seek revenge and companionship in other ways, whether on the Internet or in bars, etc. But one of the most beautiful passages comes in the fourth section:

now think.

When you watch a candle - its balletic fire a torrent of seemingly 
unending heat, a sharp fixed point of gulped air - silence meets
a breathless rhapsody of death, and there are instants of
stillness: moments where the flame flickers out, then continues;
they backed by equal moments of surprising light, where blue
flickers - in milliseconds - venomously cohere,   then vanish - a
traceless soliloquy of continuance.

Lilies on the Deathbed of Etain and Other Poems by Oisin Breen breaks structure at just the right places, mixing in narration and white space, to create his own myth and point us to the finality of it all. In the end, he calls on poetry as song, a way for humanity to come together, to create its own song, teach and learn from it as never before. This is a journey that leaves you questioning, but also falling a little bit in love with the myth and its poetry.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Poet:

Oisín Breen is a 37 year-old poet, part-time PhD candidate in narratological complexity at Edinburgh University, and financial journalist, covering the registered investment advisory space in the US. He has 209 poems published in 105 journals and anthologies in 20 countries, and across two collections.

Dublin born Breen’s second collection just launched this month, and is already gathering praise. Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín & Other Poems is a set of longer form works in an experimental ouevre. Breen’s critically aclaimed debut collection, Flowers, all sorts in blossom, figs, berries, and fruits, forgotten was released Mar. 2020 by Edinburgh’s Hybrid/Dreich Press.

You can find Breen on Twitter: @Breen, and on Mastodon: @[email protected].

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Searching for the Butterflies You Crushed Last Night by Valax Malum

May 31, 2023 by

Source: Publisher
Hardcover, 61 pgs.
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Searching for the Butterflies You Crushed Last Night by Valax Malum is a collection that could trigger those with suicidal thoughts, but it also could help them work through some of those dark feelings by demonstrating that they are not alone.

The collection opens with an author’s note about the struggles of the author and cautions that the author has struggled to move past those suicidal thoughts and is in a better place. As a bookend to that, there’s a note at the end of the book discussions the need for validating feelings that are dark because the world is not all sunshine and roses, and those who struggle have valid feelings and those feelings need to be dealt with through therapy, creation, etc.

One element that did not add to the depth or message of the collection were the poems that were written so that you needed a mirror to read them. This strategy did not add to the poems’ meanings or value. It seemed gimmicky.

However, the narrator speaks to the person they were, the person that harmed them, and the thoughts that plague them with frankness. This enables to reader to not only feel empathy but also reflect on their own darkness. “and your face is scarred as you look away/and you’re half as bright as they used to say” (“half-moon” pg. 11)

Marks of the Beast (pg. 13)

bitter mornings crossing wires
little warning shots I fire
subtle blisters, cheek and temple
from the kiss of heated metal
...

Malum does not shy away from the deepest secrets or the harshest memories, but uses those to seek understanding and closure, as well as healing. In “All Roads Lead to Parsa” (pg. 17-8), the narrator pleads with the reader and themself to “change your shoes/rinse your mouth/spread your ashes//choose your road,/and follow it.” We can all grow and change, we just have to choose to do it and follow through, no matter how hard it can be. Searching for the Butterflies You Crushed Last Night by Valax Malum is an encapsulated journey in which mental health struggles are laid bare for the purpose of healing and transformation.

RATING: Tercet

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Flare Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey

May 25, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Paperback, 104 pgs.
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Flare Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey explores the emotional and physical turbulence of unexpected diagnoses through a hopeful and apocalyptic lens. Gailey returns to some previous subjects, including her coming of age near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its nuclear energy work, as well as its impact on her health. In this more personal collection, the poems explore shifting emotions and coping strategies.

“I was still innocent. Irradiated./To blast with radiation — to sterilize/food, medical equipment, a person./I was waiting for a message from the sky.//” (“Irradiate” pg. 11) What messages do we all hope for? Messages of hope amid darkness.

Gailey juxtaposes the glow of radiation with the dulled reputation of America and the significant changes to her own abilities to walk, think, write. “In my bones, organs, skin, I’ve been storing/all of America’s dark secrets//” (“Self-Portrait as Radioactive Girl,” pg. 19) She also reminds us of mortality in “Lights Out” where “Time keeps getting away from us.” (pg. 22). She asks us “can you sympathize” as the world struggles with virus-related lockdowns, hatred, and so many more darknesses, and it is a fair question. So much is unraveling outside of the diagnosis and the end of the world seems to be coming faster and faster — hurricanes, wildfires, deadly viruses — everything seems personal. However, Gailey reminds us, “Chaos theory makes beauty of a mess./When I was little I looked more like you.” (pg. 51)

Tumultuous, emotional journey through ups and downs of medical mysteries, diagnoses and misdiagnoses, but Flare Corona by Jeannine Hall Gailey is about our own apocalypses and how we deal with the fallout. “Don’t remember me like this, grim-faced, after all the bad decisions./Don’t remember the war. Just remember the sweetness,//how it was once. Leave me covered in cliches and lilacs.//” (“When I Said Goodbye,” pg. 85).

RATING: Cinquain

Other Reviews:

About the Poet:

Jeannine Hall Gailey is a writer with MS who served as the second Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington and is the author of Becoming the Villainess, She Returns to the Floating World, Unexplained Fevers, The Robot Scientist’s Daughter, winner of the Moon City Press Book Prize, Field Guide to the End of the World, and the upcoming Flare, Corona from BOA Editions. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Ploughshares.

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Metabolics by Jessica E. Johnson

May 17, 2023 by

Source: Pine State Publicity
Paperback, 104 pgs.
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Metabolics by Jessica E. Johnson explores the changes in humanity and nature and their connection to each other, as well as their disconnect. It is a book-length poem broken down into what I call “different movements.” Opening and closing the collection are poems titled “Herein,” which the narrator speaks to a desire to “exit” their own body but by the end is inhabiting themselves more wholly than before through the experience of becoming a mother.

Exploring life’s processes and the energy it takes to perform them do not remain with just the human body, but with life all around us, including the trees that pay no heed to the children engaging them. “The children told the trees about their favorite shows … The trees said nothing so the children screamed their songs.” (pg. 49)

There is a great deal in this collection that explores our detriment to ecology while still being part of it. What steps we take to reduce what we use, while still allowing children to bring home their trinkets to us as they learn the alphabet, recycling the rest. We even create our own cycles – think of the lists of tasks we create and how we habitually stick to them.

“…Cedar considers all the ways in which she’s not enough, how her hundred feet aren’t tall enough to make a home. Cedar tries coming up with ways of being better, being someone else, being something else, and you — close your leaf pores to the cooler air, host a grand reaction, your body restoring itself from stored up light.” (pg. 19)

There’s rigidity in the cedars that populate the forest as is burns, only for new saplings and life to emerge from the ashes. Cycles upon cycles, interlocked in mysterious ways. But at the heart, Johnson speaks to the adaptability nature has for changes and challenges, and how we need also to be a flexible element in the cycles that are shifting gradually.

Metabolics by Jessica E. Johnson is a ebbing and flowing of cycles and change. Johnson is exploring how we change as we mature and grow, and yet, we still harbor the hurts of the past that shaped us. How can we enable processes to change and adapt to new realities, how can we change our own processes and tasks to create a better, safe world for our children and generations into the future? So many large questions are tackled in this volume, many of which are unanswered but insight deeper thinking.

RATING: Cinquain

Photo Credit: Becca Blevins

About the Poet:

Jessica E. Johnson writes poetry and nonfiction. She’s the author of the book-length poem Metabolics and the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other, and is a contributor to the anthology Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Paris Review, Tin House, The New Republic, Poetry Northwest, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, Annulet Poetics, The Southeast Review, and Sixth Finch. She teaches at Portland Community College and co-hosts the Constellation Reading Series at Tin House.

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