Scan barcode
aliciaprettybrowneyereader's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
The poet is a native of rural northeast Kansas. Her background is evident in her poems when she writes about westward expansion and prairie burning. She also writes of young girls developing into womanhood. One of her most poignant poems in the collection is Elegy for the Living, an insightful piece on grief. Lovers of poetry should definitely read this collection.
xterminal's review
4.0
Amy Fleury, Beautiful Trouble (Southern Illinois University Press, 2004)
I wasn't quite sure what to make of Beautiful Trouble, the 2004 Crab Orchard First Book Award winner, for the first few pages. Once I got into the rhythm of Amy Fleury's poetry, however, it was like a wire tripped in my head, and I devoured the rest of the book in one sitting. Fleury is at her best in the last section of the book, where her triple obsessions of sensuality, rural life, and time all converge:
“Once again we stumble out
of sheet tangle and the dross of dreams.
Daylight comes in little sips
over the lip of the bitter cup.
It is enough to sustain us.
It is enough to know that
we will go out again
with all our failings and loose change,
dazzled and hopeful
in the splendor of the sun.”
(“Aubade”)
Solid stuff, worth reading, with a real honesty to it: this is unvarnished in the best of ways, like a bare floor capable of giving you splinters, but still attractive enough that you refuse to carpet it. *** ½
I wasn't quite sure what to make of Beautiful Trouble, the 2004 Crab Orchard First Book Award winner, for the first few pages. Once I got into the rhythm of Amy Fleury's poetry, however, it was like a wire tripped in my head, and I devoured the rest of the book in one sitting. Fleury is at her best in the last section of the book, where her triple obsessions of sensuality, rural life, and time all converge:
“Once again we stumble out
of sheet tangle and the dross of dreams.
Daylight comes in little sips
over the lip of the bitter cup.
It is enough to sustain us.
It is enough to know that
we will go out again
with all our failings and loose change,
dazzled and hopeful
in the splendor of the sun.”
(“Aubade”)
Solid stuff, worth reading, with a real honesty to it: this is unvarnished in the best of ways, like a bare floor capable of giving you splinters, but still attractive enough that you refuse to carpet it. *** ½
More...