The Clearing: Poems (Max Ritvo Poetry Prize)
(By Allison Adair)
Read Ebook | Size | 20 MB (20,079 KB) |
|---|---|
| Format | |
| Downloaded | 570 times |
| Last checked | 7 Hour ago! |
| Author | Allison Adair |
Luminous and electric from the first line to the last, Allison Adair's debut collection navigates the ever-shifting polls of villainy and victimhood with a singular incisiveness and a rich imagination. The women in these poems live in places that have been excavated for gold and precious ores, and they understand the nature of being hollowed out. From the midst of the civil war to the post-recession era, Adair charts fairy tales that are painfully familiar, never forgetting that violence is often accompanied by tenderness. Here we wonder, "What if this time instead of crumbs the girl drops / teeth, her own, what else does she have"?
The Clearing knows the dirt beneath our nails, both alone and as a country, and pries it gently loose until we remember something of who we are, "from before...from a similar injury or kiss." There is a dark beauty in this work, and Adair is a skilled stenographer of the silences around which we orbit. Described by Henri Cole as "haunting and dirt caked," her unromantic poems of girlhood, nature, and family linger with an uncommon, unsettling resonance.”
