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juanjmorales's review
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
courtneyfalling's review
3.0
This collection succeeds in creating a fantastical/nightmarish end to a marriage that at times feels like the logical dissolution of an abusive and distant relationship and at other times like a spectacular and jarring crash. It reminded me of "A Wife Is a Hope Chest" by Christine Brandel, including with its attention to wordplay and sound. My favorite poems include "Questions About the Wife," "I Love His Profile," "Love Poem For What Is," "You Are the Penultimate Love of my Life," and "Love Poem For What Wasn't." There's also a great attention to how the collection as a whole is constructed, with repetition of "Book of..." and "Elise" poems and parallels between what is/what wasn't or Atlanta and Atalanta, ties woven through various poems.
But something here—or a lack of something here—never fully clicked for me. I never felt like I could fully access the story of/with Elise, and the representation and repurposing of others felt rife with ethical difficulties, nowhere most notably as "First Husband." I think I'd need to go back and reread each poem several times, mostly out of order, to really follow everything happening on a narrative level before even trying to answer larger questions around intent and approach.
But something here—or a lack of something here—never fully clicked for me. I never felt like I could fully access the story of/with Elise, and the representation and repurposing of others felt rife with ethical difficulties, nowhere most notably as "First Husband." I think I'd need to go back and reread each poem several times, mostly out of order, to really follow everything happening on a narrative level before even trying to answer larger questions around intent and approach.
mattleesharp's review
4.0
there were a few sort of narrative pulses threaded in and out of this collection of poems (many of the titles are similar enough that you have to imagine they weren't meant to be thought of as stories working within the story).
the book is not so much about vows as how we break them. and though a lot of these poems have a sexual energy or are emotionally very evocative, that's not really what makes this collection great. i've read vow twice now and what keeps me coming back is that so many of these poems are written seemingly in the aftermath of great violence. "i hear your final word was no" we are told at the end of our introduction to elise (a character who's featured in the title of half a dozen or so of these poems). and immediately after we're confronted with the image of a possibly dead / possibly sleeping horse lying on a beach. a corpse we don't understand and have no context for. and in a way that horse is a metaphor for the rest of the collection to me. some of these poems are an open wound. some of them are darkly funny. but all of them contain some hint of the inexplicable. all of them are a thing i didn't expect to see and am afraid to touch.
the book is not so much about vows as how we break them. and though a lot of these poems have a sexual energy or are emotionally very evocative, that's not really what makes this collection great. i've read vow twice now and what keeps me coming back is that so many of these poems are written seemingly in the aftermath of great violence. "i hear your final word was no" we are told at the end of our introduction to elise (a character who's featured in the title of half a dozen or so of these poems). and immediately after we're confronted with the image of a possibly dead / possibly sleeping horse lying on a beach. a corpse we don't understand and have no context for. and in a way that horse is a metaphor for the rest of the collection to me. some of these poems are an open wound. some of them are darkly funny. but all of them contain some hint of the inexplicable. all of them are a thing i didn't expect to see and am afraid to touch.
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