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jd_brubaker's review
4.0
I think often at the heart of poetry is the theme of love. This book begins with a love poem written to a blind ancestor of Erika Hunt's, and as the book continues to move through time and space, the theme of love resonates so strongly, at times I thought I must be reading one of the romantics. Family, race, love, gender...all are themes wrapped together to build this short but beautiful book of poetry.
"The sun springs across the year / and who has time for sleep?" (pg 5). Indeed, who can sleep when such beautiful language is available to be read and absorbed? I chose to read this book on a whim because I was growing restless for something new, something different from the other books I had been reading at the time. I found this one on my shelf and chose it. The image on the cover, the length of the book, and the fact that I had never heard of the poet before all gave me a desire to peek into its pages and see what I'd find there. "Words perform a miracle and resuscitate the body" (pg 10). "Wake the stone / call back the atoms" (pg 10). "broken glass subsumed into / the bottle" (pg 11). I found here a trove of images, feelings, thoughts, and reflections so incredibly honest in their admission of brokenness as well as their search for mending.
Love, even in its truest form, still includes heartbreak. It must. Until human is without flaw, to love will always mean to hurt. Whether that love is romantic, sexual, mental, familial, friendly, etc. there will always be some pain. How fitting, then, that this book centers on the beauty that can be found in love's brokenness. How fitting that the love isn't rendered any less powerful or beautiful for leaving scars behind. And at the center of this love is the power of words, of poetry, of writing, and their ability to capture the nuances of love. "Duties infiltrate the story. The story has a gender, ALWAYS" (pg 15). This chapbook carries within it something truly raw and vulnerable, something unassuming, something transparent in the ways we talk and write about love.
This book stayed with me for days after. Something about it still feels open and raw, like a wound just before it begins to heal. I recommend it.
"The sun springs across the year / and who has time for sleep?" (pg 5). Indeed, who can sleep when such beautiful language is available to be read and absorbed? I chose to read this book on a whim because I was growing restless for something new, something different from the other books I had been reading at the time. I found this one on my shelf and chose it. The image on the cover, the length of the book, and the fact that I had never heard of the poet before all gave me a desire to peek into its pages and see what I'd find there. "Words perform a miracle and resuscitate the body" (pg 10). "Wake the stone / call back the atoms" (pg 10). "broken glass subsumed into / the bottle" (pg 11). I found here a trove of images, feelings, thoughts, and reflections so incredibly honest in their admission of brokenness as well as their search for mending.
Love, even in its truest form, still includes heartbreak. It must. Until human is without flaw, to love will always mean to hurt. Whether that love is romantic, sexual, mental, familial, friendly, etc. there will always be some pain. How fitting, then, that this book centers on the beauty that can be found in love's brokenness. How fitting that the love isn't rendered any less powerful or beautiful for leaving scars behind. And at the center of this love is the power of words, of poetry, of writing, and their ability to capture the nuances of love. "Duties infiltrate the story. The story has a gender, ALWAYS" (pg 15). This chapbook carries within it something truly raw and vulnerable, something unassuming, something transparent in the ways we talk and write about love.
This book stayed with me for days after. Something about it still feels open and raw, like a wound just before it begins to heal. I recommend it.
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