Nina Murray: A Season of Gathering
I'm not sure if I've had a season of scattering or of gathering鈥昦nd aren't those two really the same thing?鈥昩ut I did come in contact with many new poets.听
Whitney Jones delivers nothing short of a reckoning in her debut听听.听Jones is a poet of the coal country, where 鈥渢he old works鈥� is both a reference to a specific exhausted mine, and a pun on the persistence of the community coal mining still barely sustains. In resonant, assured lines, Jones chronicles the natural鈥昦nd metaphysical鈥曗�漰rocess of sinking/into sediment, of standing/under pressure鈥� on the ground that is literally slipping from under her speaker's feet. 鈥淸B]y the time your kids/are old enough to remember,/they won鈥檛.鈥澨�
Another debut from Heartland Review Press is Ted Higgs鈥� chapbook听, followed by the 2019 release of his full-length collection听.听听I read these back-to-back, and am glad to have done so.听听Archipelago听references the Greek islands around the mainland town of Sounion, near where Higgs began his overseas Army career.听The poems in this volume are haunted by love--sometimes desperate, sometimes tentative and half-recognized through the scrim of mythos Higgs erects.听The speaker鈥檚 knowing poise鈥曗�淭ake up your shield, my friend, the time has passed/for reverie鈥濃�晅ints Higgs鈥� world with melancholy.听In听Plank by Plank, the sentiment persists: it is a book of experience, a chronicle of arrivals to places that are not what they seem, or what they had been imagined.听
Love is also at the center of Jessica Mehta's forthcoming听.听Bad Indian听is Mehta's ardent ode to the woman she chronicles herself becoming: the protagonist of her own life. A hero. A someone who knows, with supreme clarity and in full possession of metaphor, what her 鈥渄esires are worth.鈥� Someone, crucially, who looks back without undue guilt, dissects shame, calls injustices by name, and can say to herself and the one she loves, 鈥渘either of us/are the wrong kind of Indian.鈥�
: Into the Sparkling White
鈥淭he world is a Russian / Wood of wolves and white,鈥� writes Cynthia Cruz in the poem 鈥淕host鈥� from her 2018 collection听Dregs听(Four Way Books). 鈥淲here among the shattered / Voices are you?鈥澨�
Across several collections now, Cruz has juxtaposed the sparkling white of her frozen childhood diorama against the dark abyss of an adult mind left trying to cope with the persistent cold of that static ice age. Cruz is a poet obsessed with the wounds and wonders of youth, and the winter imagery of her work traps her early years in a snowglobe she rolls and ponders throughout her poems. In both听How the End Begins听and听Dregs, she redeems the teenage-tragic tenor of her themes with a sincerity of voice and total commitment to her vision. These poems are a swirling blizzard of atmospheric synthesizers, cruel fairy tales, feathered morbidity, and the aching beauty of loneliness.
听Seeking an Unbreakable Fever
Reviews of Andre Aciman鈥檚 2007 novel听Call Me By Your Name听(and its 2017 movie adaptation by Luca Guadagnino) often refer to variants of agony: 鈥渢he agony and ecstasy of young love鈥� (Entertainment Weekly), 鈥渢he agony鈥f waiting and wondering鈥� (Screencrush), and so on. But agony-philes may find听Find Me,听Aciman鈥檚 recently released sequel to听CMBYN, disappointingly鈥atisfying, which is to say not very satisfying at all.听Find Me听is short on agony because it鈥檚 short on foreplay in both form and content. In听CMBYN,听Elio spends page after luscious page reeling from a single shoulder-squeeze, still half a book away from consummating his affair. In听Find Me, by contrast, Elio meets an older man at a concert, gives their initial flirtation a lukewarm review (鈥淚t was the kind of talk that was not as oblique as I would have wished鈥濃�攔ight, same!), and then, a mere ten pages later, finds himself wondering, about this same love interest: 鈥淐ould two people who鈥檇 basically spent less than four hours together still have so few secrets from each other?鈥� I mean鈥�could听they?听Could they really?听Suffice it to say, no peaches were harmed (or鈥onored?) in the making of听Find Me, because the lovers aren鈥檛 separated long enough to get horny for foodstuffs.听
So perhaps听CMBYN鈥檚 twin star is not听Find Me听but听Agony, a collection of comics by Mark Beyer originally published in various alt-comics magazines in the 80s and re-released by New York Review Comics in 2016. Drawn in Beyer鈥檚 distinctively demented, hallucinatory style,听Agony听chronicles the (mis)adventures of Amy and Jordan, who may be a couple or may just be bound together by their situation, which some might view as a specifically New York-y purgatory involving creature-infested apartments, vicious landlords, and monstrous muggers, but others might recognize as an only slightly exaggerated depiction of the human condition. On the surface, the zany agony in听Agony听might seem quite unlike the swoony agony in听CMBYN, but upon closer inspection, they share some key features. Take, for example, the movement of time: in one panel, Amy makes a comment to Jordan, and his response comes 鈥渢wo weeks later鈥� in the next panel. Elio would understand this slippage: 鈥淭wenty years was yesterday, and yesterday was just earlier this morning, and morning seemed light-years away.鈥� And the trouble in both books is rooted in the body: Elio鈥檚 longing for Oliver makes him feel 鈥渇ire like fear, like panic鈥y entire body on fire;鈥� at one point in听Agony,听Amy鈥檚 leg dissolves in a sulfuric acid bath. So what if the hot, burning flesh is metaphorical in one book, literal in another? Agony blurs lines: between now and later, self and other, pain and pleasure. Like听CMBYN,听Agony听offers readers the pleasure-pain of going all-out and all the way into a feeling, a moment, a world in which everything is heightened to a fever pitch鈥攁nd what reader would ever want the fever to break?
:听A Chorus of Generosity, Garlic, and Song
Michelle Brittan Rosado鈥檚 debut collection听听is astonishing in its simultaneous expanse and meditative intimacy. Her deeply explored poems on diaspora, love, and Central California gather power with layered articulations, blending memory, family history, and imagination. In these poems of searching, nothing seems to hold, paradoxically creating a sense of eternity in Rosado鈥檚 line. This is a collection of generosity and declaration, led by a speaker who will dwell in fleeting moments and sing of what was found there (from the title poem: 鈥淐hange your idea of brokenness. / Today鈥檚 salt / is mine, and tomorrow鈥檚. / Look for me / on the horizon. I am as small and endless as sand.鈥�).
Opening with the line 鈥淵ou deserve your beautiful life,鈥�听听is the hybrid book we have all been waiting for, but didn鈥檛 know it: a poetry and recipe collection of abundance and care. This book bursts with open-hearted Filipino American pride and power, in ecstatic and aching lyric leaps (from 鈥淐ento鈥�: 鈥淚 saw the small likeness of a mother / floating in a river. / I heard my sister say / on the phone it鈥檚 not right how they did that. / Her voice breaking into fingerprints.鈥�) paired with soul-satisfying meals such as 鈥淭ake Your Time鈥� pasta, involving San Manzano tomatoes and 25 cloves of garlic. Organized in sections using the five tastes (plus umami), her poems are electric, an altar to the power of food to express love and belonging.听
To read听听is to enter a choral dimension. Her poems resist, transfix, and animate; they are both minimal and maximal, shot through with becoming in its many forms鈥攅nduring, wanting, collapsing, always metamorphosing. The first poem in the collection is titled 鈥淎riel,鈥� and I see her as part of Sylvia Plath鈥檚 searing lineage, along with Korean poets Kim Hyesoon and Kim Yideum, in further opening poetry to the overwhelming and often unspoken experiences of women and expanding how a poem can live and sing on a page. Mei-En鈥檚 speakers take the forces of their threatened circumstances and throw them back with mesmerizing, explosive power and vulnerability (from 鈥淭he Body That Has Something to Say鈥�: 鈥淭he body that has something to say / knows better than that. / Lights everything on fire with one hand / and tends coals with the other.鈥�).听
Reviewer Bios
Nina Murray听is the听author of听Minimize Considered (chapbook, Finishing Line Press, 2018) and听Alcestis in the Underworld听(2019, Circling Rivers Press).听Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including听Ekphrasis听and听The Harpoon Review. Her translations from Russian and Ukrainian include Peter Aleshkovsky鈥檚听Stargorod, and Oksana Zabuzhko鈥檚 award-winning听The Museum of Abandoned Secrets.听She grew up in Lviv, in Western Ukraine, and holds advanced degrees in linguistics and creative writing. As a member of the U.S. diplomatic corps, she has served in Lithuania, Canada, and Russia.
David Nilsen听is a freelance writer living in Ohio. He is a National Book Critics Circle member, and his听 literary reviews and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming in听The Rumpus,听Gulf Coast,听The Millions,听The Georgia Review, and numerous other respected publications.
Ali Shapiro听teaches writing at the听University of Michigan's听Stamps School of Art & Design. Her comics, poems, essays and reviews have appeared in various print and online journals, including听Gertrude, Muzzle, Prairie Schooner, PANK, The Rumpus,听and听Electric Literature.听More of her work is available on her website,听.听
听is the author of the chapbook听RARE BIRDS. Her debut full-length collection听As She Appears听is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2021 and won the 2019 Pamet River Prize. Her poems have appeared in听American Poetry Review,听Gulf Coast,听Kenyon Review,听Massachusetts Review, and听The New Republic. She is an affiliate artist at Headlands Center for the Arts and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from Kundiman, MacDowell Colony, and Vermont Studio Center.