The Whole by Contemplation of a Single Bone: Poems by Nancy K Pearson
Fordham University Press (ebook), expected publication date 1 April 2016
104 Pages
Publisher’s Website (Book Page)
I was given this ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
In this her second collection of poetry, Nancy K. Pearson explores the possibilities of recovery and transformation in a world where “words cease to matter.” The speaker attempts to reconcile the past–a past shadowed by depression, addiction and misdiagnosis. Pearson refuses to end in a place of relief, asking the question, “don’t we all /fall into aggregate darkness/for something?” Instead her poems meditate on the lyric of absence and fragmentation. Pearson’s poems are restless, unsettling and revelatory.
EXTRACT
SELENE’S HORSE
I asked James
Can you feel you’re dying?
WHAT I THOUGHT
The Whole by Contemplation of a Single Bone is a striking, starling collection of poems. The poems are just the right shade of dark for me. I loved every poem in this collection. I thought about the poems and the themes when I wasn’t reading it. Some poems stayed in my head for days. This collection reminds me of the poems of one of my favourite writers, Joyce Carol Oates. I really liked the fact the poems are written in different styles and forms so every page was a surprise.
RATING
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