119 pages
Published 2023
Read April 18
Rating: 4 out of 5
Another entry in what is quickly becoming my favorite micro-genre: collections of folkloric fantastic poetry rich with hints of macabre in its deep dark wood.
Miracles and acts of consumption bridge the fictive gap between humanity and the rest of nature. Fairy tales and the wreckage of the Anthropocene collide, entangle in broken remnants, climb in tendrils across each other. We celebrate the forest that grew from the city. We metamorphose from heartbroken beings into rivers; we carve our hearts from trees; trees metamorphose into folkloric beings and into heartbroken people, back into ourselves. Hair and hyphae are inseparable, indistinguishable. Cobweb brides wear veils of moss; bones “too heavy to float” build up reefs. Chalk and childhood intertwine, each scoring meaning upon the other in the pastel rituals of summertime.
in chalk you drew a line
between the Wilderness
and our childhood
spent in gardens we thought
were wild, walls we imagined
(from “Kitchen Garden”)
Informal list of favorites:
“the size of your fist”
“Her ribs are apple wood”
“Kitchen Garden”
“In the Unlocking Room”
“They grow between foundation stones”
“What do you remember about the earth?”
“Maid Stone”
“While Alice sleeps in Wonderland”
“Paper boats”
“Iron, Glass, Slipper”
“Mothers become stepmothers in fairy tales”
“For this meal we thank her”
“The Art of Betraying Others for Food”
“the glaciers made her deep”
“vigil”
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