NOSTROVIA! PRESS CHAPBOOK REVIEWS OF 2016
i could tell you how this poetry makes me feel but i have water in my lungs currently
I CAN REMEMBER THE MEANING OF EVERY TAROT CARD BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT I TEXTED YOU LAST NIGHT by ELLE NASH
a moon filled with silver rings sits next to me & asks how i'm feeling. this moon says, i'm so bitter about people
with close families
& i say, me too.
the same moon begins to get honest with me in a way that i have never experienced a moon to be honest. a lot of the time, moons tend to lie to me. i tend to love them anyway. but this moon is different & she is something like a wheel, always moving wherever people tell her to.
this is where we are supposed to discuss magic but when are we not discussing magic in the ways we fuck, or the ways we disappoint, as if those are two different things?
this moon has acne & she says, i have been trying to get to you
to open up your rib cage
until the bones crack
whenever someone says i'm not perfect in response to them doing something wrong, something cruel, i get angry. i tell this moon how i feel & she smiles. no one is asking for perfection. anyone asking for perfection should shut their big beautiful mouths. "perfection" was created by the patriarchy.
this moon doesn't remember the first night she met me & i understand. there were so many other things going on, but for some reason i couldn't forget it. the lake was there, laughing as always. her ripples wouldn't stop shaking her surface & all the moon could do was reflect. it was spring & there were still christmas lights hanging from houses hidden in the trees.
this moon peels off a few rocks from her skin & we skip them until the lake breaks down crying. we run.
after catching her breath, this moon says, i don't remember the last time i missed you.
then i realize that i'm actually the sun, still alive, even if it gets harder every day. but i am still here, looking at this moon like she is the moon. the only moon.
the moon runs again. i want to follow her as she moves but the reflection in the lake is black so i follow some unimportant star. when i find her, she looks at me.
she says, i shot you in my dream
and you should have stayed dead
i think about suicide & who would feed the dog i never really owned.
i think about my constant heartache & picture driving on the highway for the first time.
MAKE A FIST & TONGUE THE KNUCKLES by EMILY O’NEILL
we keep the mirror in our new apartment on the floor because we are afraid to put nails into old walls. we don’t know exactly what we’ll find in there.
at night we draw the curtains & roll over & i think of what emily said, I’m afraid of kissing / you like a cherry pit, like a crab unstrung from his shell.
in our new apartment the mantle has a number of beautiful things & then it has a basket which has letters from most people who have loved me & from almost all who have really fucked me up. i have an inability to toss what has been given to me. what has been made for me.
I hate the staying it takes / to make a home.
i know, i know, i have a tendency to read beauty where it is not intended.
chapbooks are buildings & often they are nothing more. the words can be so beautiful & i can set it down on my sofa & walk away & never think about what the words meant. not because the words are not mine, words, like, ultimately, space, are unownable, but that does not stop us from trying. nothing can stop us from trying. & what i’m trying to say is that beyond owning there is loving. these are separate entities. between houses & homes.
& what i’m trying to say is have you ever felt a horrible thing begin to happen to you & think: i am going to write about this & make it something tangible? make it into an undeniable entity?
we find the kitchen floorboards coming up, when we fight the light almost flickers. You want to wreck the foxgloves. / You want to un-layer for spring. / Unburden your knuckles / of expectation.
it is less that emily o’neill is an architect & more that there is an understanding she maintains. between herself & words & dark things & us, the ones listening. chapbooks are buildings or homes or maybe they, the good ones, this one, make a fist & tongue the knuckles, is just they way it feels when someone gives you the most perfect poster. one they bought you because they were thinking of you, not because it’s your birthday or anything.
it’s always raining & I am never clean.
I WAS TALKING ABOUT LOVE— YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT GEOGRAPHY by BOB SYKORA
my friend deleted her facebook & so all of the best pictures of me are no longer available online. honestly, i don’t really know where they are anymore. they disappeared. & i know my friend has a lot going on but i am worried about it. before when people clicked through my profile there were a lot more pictures of me Having Fun. a lot more Candid Shots. my friend had a misdiagnosed sleep disorder & now that it’s been correctly diagnosed she finds all the lights & sounds associated with computers, with facebook in particular, to be too much. she has changed, completely. & i guess she left today to visit her dad in singapore.
bob sykora writes, we sleep with computers & it feels like a personal attack.
he writes, I can’t stand the look / you give me when you’re not responding to my texts. & i’m like oh. even more like oh when i look him up on facebook & realize that his cover photo is just a tweet with, no more dating poets written over & over again.
on twitter i try not to post that much but also even if i wanted to i don’t know if i’d have anything to say. i don’t know if i have anything interesting to put in this review. but the thing about poetry that i like is that you get to know things about people. things they wouldn’t just tell you. it’s like reading random pages of someone’s diary but they gave you permission.
i want to go on a hike but i want to have cell phone reception & i want my phone to have a better camera so i can send my friends pictures of all the stars i’ll be able to see once i’m away from the city & its lights & how they keep other lights from coming. i imagine they would be jealous but it would also be a good reminder that this sort of thing is attainable.
but ultimately, no one is letting you read their diary. when it comes to poetry, they get to decide what gets into every single word & how opaque to make it. bob keeps it very real, but i don’t know his life.
the book keeps laughing at me.
reviews by isabelle davis & beyza ozer
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