The Scented Fox

by Laynie Browne

Selected by Alice Notley for the National Poetry Series, Laynie Browne’s sixth collection casts a spell. In these fragmented poetic tales, characters disappear and reemerge, their charms reconfigured, their stories unraveling, their happy endings elusive. The book’s coda consists of a fantastical poetic dictionary, asking readers to redefine their sense of meaning.

Laynie Browne was born in 1966 and grew up in Los Angeles. She is the author of six collections of poetry, including Daily Sonnets and Mermaid’s Purse. She has taught creative writing at the University of Washington Bothell and Mills College.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2007

Reviews

[Selena · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had just finished The Scented Fox when I found out that Laynie Browne was going to be reading in Seattle. There are few things I enjoy more than going to book readings to hear the author read their work and to meet them afterward. Laynie Browne looked small and beautiful but commanded attention. She read from both Daily Sonnets and The Scented Fox.

Laynie has a very distinct writing style that is influenced by flora and fauna and being in the present. Her work brings into it the past by linking it to the present. When she was speaking she told us that she doesn't view time traditionally - for her, time isn't linear but kind of jumps all over the place. The one thing that firmly stands however, is that all you have is the present because the past is done and you may not live to see the future.

As far as "categories" go, she is definitely an experimental writer. She takes her work to a new level of innovation and pushes herself as a writer to imagine something new from something old. Her work is fragmented. It reminds me of pieces I've read by Lyn Hejinian. Specifically of a piece called My Life. This is only an excerpt:

You spill the sugar when you lift the spoon. My father had filled an old apothecary jar with what he called "sea glass," bits of old bottles rounded and textured by the sea, so abundant on beaches. There is no solitude. It buries itself in veracity. It is as if one splashed in the water lost by one's tears. My mother had climbed into the garbage can in order to stamp down the accumulated trash, but the can was knocked off balance, and when she fell she broke her arm. She could only give a little shrug. The family had little money but plenty of food. At the circus only the elephants were greater than anything I could have imagined. The egg of Columbus, landscape and grammar. She wanted one where the playground was dirt, with grass, shaded by a tree, from which would hang a rubber tire as a swing, and when she found it she sent me. These creatures are compound and nothing they do should surprise us. I don't mind, or I won't mind, where the verb "to care" might multiply.

What I enjoy most about Laynie's work is that it allows for loose interpretation. Her pieces have a clear topic but they aren't trying to lead you to a certain end-point in interpretation. Like her views on time - her pieces are also meant to be timeless.

Daily Sonnet is a book of poetry but is unconventionally done. Laynie spoke of finally realizing in graduate school that her pieces of poetry didn't have to be disconnected. She plays around with this concept in Daily Sonnets by picking up where she left off in a poem with a separate piece. I haven't had the pleasure of reading Daily Sonnets yet, but after hearing her read her Love Sonnet to Light, I was instantly enamored with her words.

Love Sonnet to Light
Here are the questions
I did not ask
And why I did not ask them
Do you read my thoughts
Continually as a practice
Or more spasmodically
As the line begins to waver
Do you speak to clarify
My aspiration
If I look down at the page
Will I remain unseen
Yet magically present like the seeker
Who is certain you speak to him privately
As I speak to you

The Scented Fox is her book of prose poetry, though it is much more complicated than that. In accordance with her trend of fragmentation, the book itself is segmented into parts. The Scented Fox has no table of contents but there are three distinct sections. The first is the section of prose poetry. The second is her "Tales in Miniature." The third is her "Festoon Dictionary."

The prose poetry is strongly focused on fairy tales, urban myths, folk-tales and received literature. She makes the pieces ambiguous as to which specific fairy-tale or folk-tale they're meant to address. More often then not, there are many tales mentioned within one piece. As I was reading, I felt a strange sense of familiarity, as though I had stumbled across these concepts and ideas before without ever being able to pinpoint it. Her tales in miniature section is an incredibly interesting concept. She writes a fairytale in three words. Many fairy-tales have common overlapping details and themes. The Tales in Miniature plays off of this idea by providing you with only three words from which you're supposed to imagine a story. It felt like a game that you could play with someone who was young. Tell them three words and have them figure out the story around them. The festoon dictionary was gorgeous. It redefined words with puzzling definitions, but nonetheless quirky ones. It amused me to no end to find words that had their own definition that were used to define something else and to see what that created. Her first section of prose poetry, however, stands on its own. You do not need the Festoon Dictionary or the Tales in Miniature in order to understand and enjoy her tales. Ultimately, Browne has given the reader a second chance at imagination.

It is important to also mention that The Scented Fox won the National Poetry Series Award.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

High 4. For those who think prose poems aren't properly poetry, I submit to them The Scented Fox. The images, the language, the ineffable connections holding them all together--holy shit. I would give my left boob to be able to write a poem like "The Forest at Night" or "Crossing."

That said, the Festoon Dictionary, while interesting and occasionally perfect, does just go on and on and on.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite section was "Tales in Miniature," which had three-word sections, such as:

13
stallion
broken
ribbon

14
wintry
purse
dew

15
braid
cliff
axe

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. I carried it around in my purse for over a week, and found myself avoiding opening it. It felt to me like a poorly translated edition of something lovely. I would think I was enjoying it and then the very next sentence would rub my skin the wrong way. I think the dictionary in the back explains a lot of why I didn't like the poetry. While it's clever and heartfelt, it doesn't make any sense to me. I like words. I like the words the way they are and think they are super cool as is, so having meanings reassigned feels nonsensical to me, and maybe that's the aesthetic here, but it doesn't work for me personally.
Editing to add: I think maybe this is a collection of what I now know as Language Poetry, in which case she does a lovely job, but it's still not my thing.

[Brian Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The language is mythic Victorian, known in academic circles as awesome. The Flora and Fauna, whose presence is usually all too boring for my motor mind, is presented through lavender tinted spectacles. You take them off and everything is still lavender - lavender water, lavender drapes, lavender dog. You feel confused, nauseous. You dab your head with a black handkerchief, have a sip of the odd purple water, and sit back down. The lavender sun fades in the corner of the window. You'll be ready to leave a little later. For now, you will read some more.

[Ash]

"The girl of wax is plausible. An unfixed entity. She frequents / the rose coast to pluck plasticity. What is real fastens pretend. What is / pretend -- the furthermore real. She is liquid, solid, necessity..."

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laynie Browne writes intelligent and, at times, playful poetry that is transcendent and down-to-earth at the same time. She has a wonderful way of calling attention to the music and multi-valency of language.

[Karyna McGlynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I've been waiting for this book my whole life.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dictionary at the end of the book is delicious!

[Frankie Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting language draws us into a forest of the unconscious

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice, but did not understand a word.