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A review by jd_brubaker
Silk Poems by Jen Bervin
3.0
This was a beautifully quick book of poetry. The poems themselves were very short, and the book was barely more than 100 pages, so it made reading this book somewhat of a breeze. I'm always fascinated by poets whose poems take up only a few short lines. I'm more of a verbose poet myself, and so I like to study those poems that say in only a few lines what it might take me several stanzas to say. Just that experience alone made this book interesting to read.
In terms of form, I was also captured. Not only are the poems short, but they're all written in caps with one space in between each letter, making the W O R D S L O O K L I K E T H I S. It was a kind of fluidity of language I had never seen before. Without uppercase and lowercase letters, without any punctuation to distinguish words or phrases, each word and each line bleed together in such a way that my attention was forced to be extra focused.
At times this form was highly effective, leading my eyes to the words and from line to line in such a slow, purposeful way, that even the act of reading this book became incantatory. It was as if my eyes, my mind, my consciousness was weaving these poems together, rather than merely receiving words written by someone else.
At other times, though, this form felt overbearing. Almost as though I was being beaten down by it, and not because of the language used, but because the act of reading the book become somewhat cumbersome as I neared the end. I don't know if this was simply my issue, as I read this book over the course of a mere two days, or if this was, in fact, because of the book itself. All I knew was that, by the time I closed the book, having finished it, my feeling was not so much one of edification as it was a feeling of exhaustion. Again, this could be that I read too much of the book at once, or that I was reading too many books at once. But it is this reason that I gave the book three stars.
The writing itself also left me somewhat dissatisfied. There were certainly some moments when I was struck by the writing: "Four / wings / of the future / folded / across / her chest" (pg 7); "Seeing her / everywhere / and badly wanting / to be seen / everywhere / by her" (pg 14); "So it begins / first in star / my own egg / trembles" (pg 27). The metaphors of moths weaving silk works incredibly well for this book. There is a great amount of medical terminology regarding the production of silk and her research in it, and so the theme of silk fills every point of this book. Sometimes it's metaphor. Sometimes it's literal. In both senses, it works to give the writing a sense of depth that goes beyond the emotional. There's an exploration of body here that truly does stand apart from every other book I've read.
I recommend this book, for sure. It was a fascinating read.
In terms of form, I was also captured. Not only are the poems short, but they're all written in caps with one space in between each letter, making the W O R D S L O O K L I K E T H I S. It was a kind of fluidity of language I had never seen before. Without uppercase and lowercase letters, without any punctuation to distinguish words or phrases, each word and each line bleed together in such a way that my attention was forced to be extra focused.
At times this form was highly effective, leading my eyes to the words and from line to line in such a slow, purposeful way, that even the act of reading this book became incantatory. It was as if my eyes, my mind, my consciousness was weaving these poems together, rather than merely receiving words written by someone else.
At other times, though, this form felt overbearing. Almost as though I was being beaten down by it, and not because of the language used, but because the act of reading the book become somewhat cumbersome as I neared the end. I don't know if this was simply my issue, as I read this book over the course of a mere two days, or if this was, in fact, because of the book itself. All I knew was that, by the time I closed the book, having finished it, my feeling was not so much one of edification as it was a feeling of exhaustion. Again, this could be that I read too much of the book at once, or that I was reading too many books at once. But it is this reason that I gave the book three stars.
The writing itself also left me somewhat dissatisfied. There were certainly some moments when I was struck by the writing: "Four / wings / of the future / folded / across / her chest" (pg 7); "Seeing her / everywhere / and badly wanting / to be seen / everywhere / by her" (pg 14); "So it begins / first in star / my own egg / trembles" (pg 27). The metaphors of moths weaving silk works incredibly well for this book. There is a great amount of medical terminology regarding the production of silk and her research in it, and so the theme of silk fills every point of this book. Sometimes it's metaphor. Sometimes it's literal. In both senses, it works to give the writing a sense of depth that goes beyond the emotional. There's an exploration of body here that truly does stand apart from every other book I've read.
I recommend this book, for sure. It was a fascinating read.