Jagged with Love

by Susanna Childress

Susanna Childress writes with an earnest desire to understand things physical and things spiritual. What results is a first collection of provocative, honest poetry that explores various human predicaments: a cancer-ridden wife, an explosive father, an infertile couple, various sexual aggressors, a missing girl. Such careful portraiture provokes the reader to consider the complexity of human love: how selfishness, fear, lust and even brutality might coincide with tenderness and loyalty. Ms. Childress's writing is refreshingly naive and clear, her voice essentially inquisitive. She is brave enough to look at the darkness of the world, but she is more courageous to hope.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 2005

Reviews

[Charis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poems that explore themes of love, family, sexuality, and Christianity, often through a personal narrative.

[Tamara Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe it's the "concept-girl" in me that gets poetry. The words don't have to straighten up in a prosaic line of accessibility. I feel poetry like musical memory more than read it like words in books. In Jagged With Love, Ms. Childress wrote words that felt like the times in the early-80's when I walked to the store with my older, adored cousin. She in her tanned and glistening mid-teens; I in my early , nubby adolescence. I'll never forget the electric fright of men driving by in cars, honking their horns, craning their necks to get a look at her. Or was it us? I didn't think so, but it felt thrilling to be walking so nonchalantly alongside such danger. And if I'd known how to put words to all the layers of knowing that have settled down into my sexual consciousness since my earliest memories, some of them would sound like the lines in this book.

More of this review, including favorite poem title and poem at my blog: http://www.tamarahillmurphy.com/blogt...

[Rita Reese · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went back and read this one because I'd seen Amy Newman's review of Childress's second book in Image recently. I'm really glad I did and I'm looking forward to the second one. With lines like "God is in my hollow bowl holding your gold" (from "God Is the Dream"), she is constantly, restlessly searching for the alchemical spark in human relationships, even at their darkest.

[kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can I really write a review? It would be so biased... :)

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal person, singer, and poet.