“Book Descriptions: Emily O’Neill’s poems herald an absence so present that it can only be humanly known as loss…the kind of loss that leads to grief, shown to us with lines as ferocious as “I dare/the dark to eat me fiercely” and “If I could, I’d tell the story with silence” and “bored with stillness,/uncatchable as/a breaking wave.” But this is not the poetry of lack. Through naming and claiming these absences, this brilliant book makes known the possibility for transformation: “a rabbit crushed//into a bottomless satin hat./Now, you see it. Now, it's hope.” —Jericho Brown, The New Testament
Pelican is a generous debut collection of poetry that gifts its audience with an unflinching portrayal of addiction, love, and the blind survival that follows grief. Like bloodied pearls strewn across a nightstand, these poems demand dignity in the face of mayhem. —Rachel McKibbens, Pink Elephant
O'Neill's poems sing with an irresistible physicality. We are sucked into her buzzing fluorescent dioramas: rooms within rooms, worlds within worlds. All of them filled with animate objects, the ones we collect & the ones we hold. Everything, even the lightlessness, is bright here, but nothing is hazy. This isn't a dream. O'Neill is acute. This is about being awake. —Brian Ellis, American Dust Revisited” DRIVE
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