A review by _nathanelias
Glimmerglass Girl by Holly Lyn Walrath

5.0

This collection questions the nature of womanhood, the nature of the heart, and the nature of existing within the shell of a body. Walrath writes, “I am dis-embodying my body / or what I once called skin, / its remnants rounding out, / the insides of a funeral urn / whose curves make sense.” Glimmerglass Girl sets out to dis-embody our very conception of bodies altogether, and in doing so instills a yearning for what it means to live and love without ever turning an eye from the inevitability of death. These poems exist in the space between memory and longing, between blue Cadillacs during Texas summers and cotton scrapbook bird nests during raw winters. In Walrath’s contemplation of beauty and loneliness she manages to obscure how we see ourselves using a lens of poetic fantasy while simultaneously crystallizing what it means to be human.