I’m late in announcing here that this review came out in Pedestal Magazine. I’m so grateful to editor John Amen for publishing my reviews. Scott Ferry’s latest book (one of many in only a few years - he is very prolific) is formatted in a very specific way, and I enjoyed diving in to his experiences in his prose poetry, with slashes instead of line breaks, with its wild leaps of imagination and dreamscape.
I'm excited to have another review up at the wonderful Pedestal Magazine. Honeycutt has long been something of a leader in the literary world in and around Charlotte. Her book reminded me of the importance of noticing. Noticing everything, and noting it. Also, I appreciate that she keeps her dead close (but not too close), as do I.
Honeycut's poems are almost deceptively accessible. But the more I read them, the more I could sink into them. It was an honor to have a place to speak a little about her new collection.
I am once again indebted to editor John Amen and his team for including one of my reviews in Pedestal Magazine. This one was a challenge because the author is outspoken and active on social media, and his work is passionate, personal and informed. I always want to do a writer justice when I share my experience and interpretation of their work, and I felt like the stakes were higher to get it right in this case. Matthew E. Henry is a black man; I am a white woman. I cannot truly understand the racism he has faced, especially in his career as a teacher in a mostly-white school with mostly-white faculty and staff, because I have not lived that experience. But nor would I ever use my gender and whiteness as an excuse for not trying to see what he has seen, hear what he has to say. I can appreciate anyone who looks at the injustices and pain in this world and asks not "why" but "what if?" What if.
Besides, how can I help but admire a book of radical theological sonnets? As usual, there was more I could have said and wanted to say, but the 1000-word limit meant I had to omit exploring how The Third Renunciation contrasts with Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, among other things.
 |
I read this one digitally, but requested the physical copy from the library as well, to experience it, and better see and understand the lineation. This title was a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award. As I noted elsewhere, I found myself breathless more than once while reading this collection. Incessant, like waves lapping stone into the earth or fire sweeping the land. And this was not the first book I've read in August that features wasps. Interestingly, a few days after reading this, I had my very first unpleasant encounter with a wasp on our property since we moved here almost two years ago - just a single wasp, very interested in a meal I was eating outside. But still, they seem to be a recurring motif in my life at the moment.
I realized that I misrepresented the title of this book on X when I posted about it. My notes for this book, as well as so many of the others I read in August, are forthcoming.
When you read a book of poetry in a single day, if not a single sitting, you are more likely to appreciate that poet's particular cadences and diction in your head than if you just read a poem here or there.
In this case, because Kwame Dawes was my thesis advisor and teacher at Pacific University's MFA program, I have the advantage of already knowing what his actual voice sounds like, the timbre and slight accent. The same man whose praise bolstered me for years and whose, "I don't believe that you believe that," about a particular line here or there still has me questioning anything I write that might be (even if I don't realize it at first) less than sincere. Sturge Town is my favorite Dawes book to date. I love it for that very trait that Kwame encouraged in me: honesty. Honest self-reflection, and a sense of one's place in the world, his or her personal history.
It was truly a joy to speak with Nancy about her poetry and her process, about the power of naming a thing, and leaning into writing what most frightens you. I loved learning more about the ways in which Nancy as a child was already a writer, and exploring what I see as the power of sharing with others our own vulnerability. As Nancy says, "We’re all just human. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all said and done things we wish we hadn’t. We all just want to be accepted, and we all just want to be loved."
Much thanks to David Roderick and the editorial staff at The Adroit Journal for publishing our interview.
