mepresley's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
5.0
I loved this collection—each individual poem and the way they all came together, especially within the final poem. The mixture of science with fairy tale was amazing, and the entire collection braided trauma and grief and loss with the way that imagination can save us, the possibility of rebirth.
My favorites poems from each part & excerpts:
One-
My favorites poems from each part & excerpts:
One-
“Rosa Roja”
"braiding history with myth
like ribbons through plaits
of the empty house, the cupboards bare
(This isn't a fairytale, though we imagine ourselves
unraveling.)"
"I believe Lieserl fought (what daughter isn't made
for such defiance
like some brief fiery meteor?)"
“Lieserl Travels Back to the River, Becomes Her Mama”
"He was gone, the Scientist who loved her badly--a violent
washing machine in her hips, tumbling. She suspects
a need for the dark memories the way mice who've lost them
in the cruel experiment return to the triangle electric though they once
knew better. ...."
“Field Trip: Lieserl Blanketed in Fallout, or Nieve”
"It's not a trick.
That's the beauty & the grief.
When we understand that we're not going anywhere
but we go anyway."
Two-
“Lieserl Runs Away”
"I've been curious. I have a secret that sounds like pieces
of silver earrings jangling against earlobes or the highest
tiny pinky key on the baby piano, better even if it's out
of tune. ...."
“Lieserl’s Yellow”
"What I'm searching for, Father,
what I'm trying to tell you in my simple way:
you spoke in the language of mathematics
beautifully precise--& I never spoke at all"
“Rosa & the Date Palm”
"What does a mouth hold but secrets What tongue in mine
What bone-handled crotch & tissue paper wadded to staunch
the bleeding. ...."
" Persimmons call themselves stories
of the gods Nieve did you also wake into the mythical
I mean rise yourself hold the cast of yourself"
Three-
“Rosa Meets Princess Alice”
" There was another group, I found out later,
who did not receive the gift of Princess Alice--
who felt no presence in the inexplicable, ...."
“Why Believe? Or, Ross Questions the Scientist About the Princess”
" My father had gone away
on his great science experiment.
(That's how I labeled & stored it away
for safekeeping in the alphabetized catalog of my girlhood.)"
Four-
“Rosa’s Time Capsule (or, Father is a Hole & Home, a Spinning Top)”
".....He's turned
careful in his old age
leaving his ghost
prints on paper-white gurneys a hole ticking
in his daughter's memory
From any spot"
“Risen Again”
"We held our whole bodies like a tree
after anyone had tried to chop it down."
“Ghost You Don’t Believe In”
"I've bled the night's silence
like wild ginger, determined to believe we are alive
always & death is merely a rearrangement
of atoms,...."
"Find me in the lines between what we know
we cannot prove--...."
Five-
“My God, Nieve”
No way to excerpt this; it works as a beautiful, powerful whole. (Not that the others DON'T work as beautiful, powerful wholes--just that this one requires everything to understand anything about the impact).
“Rosa & Nieve in the Beginning”
"I'd married, had three kids, & written a novel
about how insane I was back then. I could bottle
the crazy that way. ...."
"Inside the trunk was a mirror. I saw myself in there.
I could back & forth for awhile. & then I got stuck.
I didn't mean to break the glass."
"her whole arching solstice quieted like the first twig in spring
sags at its branch from the never-ending cold."
snowmaiden's review
3.0
I tend not to do well with high-concept poetry collections, and this is about the highest concept I’ve seen yet. Still, I enjoyed many of these poems individually, and that was worth something to me.
More...