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greyxwaren's review
5.0
"there was never/any devil in your cow's milkâonly me.
From the first page, Tedesco's collection FOREVERHAUS enters into a communication between the narrator and the liminal spaces that compose the occasionally metaphorical haunted house at the end of the street, reclaiming folklore and building a vernacular birthed of "gingerbones", "bloodfeast", and the deep haunting of its own mortality. That is to say, I knew I would be entering an otherworldly space composed of neighborhood ghosts, macabre wonderment and lore and the occasional carcass within the walls, and I knew that I would be utterly spellbound by it from the first to the last. And I was, wholeheartedly.
Tedesco's work has not yet failed to astound me, but this particular collection struck a chord with me that has not quieted since. There are many narratives entwined within these pages, all visions from the "scrying lake" that dismantle the house of many names piece by bloody piece and expose its unsteady structure and all that it hides: the pieces of self encased in the walls and floorboards, bloody mary and the mother who is sometimes real and sometimes a horror, the "infant of me" that is so often afraid. Like the "heart of the haus", the words grow creeping from within and manifest simultaneously , as if by some sweet witchcraft, as memory you haven't experienced yet, and a spectral chaos that invites the strange and spectacular alike.
With a crooked, beckoning finger, FOREVERHAUS daringly invites you to enter, as "neighbors dare each other to ring the bell", as the walls whisper and the ghosts rouse, as the structure is built and rebuilt, as the narrator tells of her birth from the dirt and her becoming of a legend that haunts the hallowed halls. I was entranced from the first by "legend", holding desperately to every breath-stealing line; I danced in the open moonlight beneath "spell break" and buried "antrum" in my chest, and was deeply entranced by the titular poem "foreverhaus". I have experienced the foreverhaus, though I dearly wish to trespass there again if I might, and I invite you to do the same.
This is like no ghost story you have ever read, and you will not find one like it again.
"goddamned is used here incorrectly. the dark/was not damned by any god. it was sweet. like blood."
From the first page, Tedesco's collection FOREVERHAUS enters into a communication between the narrator and the liminal spaces that compose the occasionally metaphorical haunted house at the end of the street, reclaiming folklore and building a vernacular birthed of "gingerbones", "bloodfeast", and the deep haunting of its own mortality. That is to say, I knew I would be entering an otherworldly space composed of neighborhood ghosts, macabre wonderment and lore and the occasional carcass within the walls, and I knew that I would be utterly spellbound by it from the first to the last. And I was, wholeheartedly.
Tedesco's work has not yet failed to astound me, but this particular collection struck a chord with me that has not quieted since. There are many narratives entwined within these pages, all visions from the "scrying lake" that dismantle the house of many names piece by bloody piece and expose its unsteady structure and all that it hides: the pieces of self encased in the walls and floorboards, bloody mary and the mother who is sometimes real and sometimes a horror, the "infant of me" that is so often afraid. Like the "heart of the haus", the words grow creeping from within and manifest simultaneously , as if by some sweet witchcraft, as memory you haven't experienced yet, and a spectral chaos that invites the strange and spectacular alike.
With a crooked, beckoning finger, FOREVERHAUS daringly invites you to enter, as "neighbors dare each other to ring the bell", as the walls whisper and the ghosts rouse, as the structure is built and rebuilt, as the narrator tells of her birth from the dirt and her becoming of a legend that haunts the hallowed halls. I was entranced from the first by "legend", holding desperately to every breath-stealing line; I danced in the open moonlight beneath "spell break" and buried "antrum" in my chest, and was deeply entranced by the titular poem "foreverhaus". I have experienced the foreverhaus, though I dearly wish to trespass there again if I might, and I invite you to do the same.
This is like no ghost story you have ever read, and you will not find one like it again.
"goddamned is used here incorrectly. the dark/was not damned by any god. it was sweet. like blood."
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