Re-

by Kristi Maxwell, Felix O. Blommestijn (Illustrator)

Poetry. These poem cycles explore relationships both human and linguistic. Responsive (and responses) to the multiple connections between words, the poems create a narrative where intimacy and sensuality are revealed in the spaces "Logic a device that keeps wonder at bay. / The bay where they docked and will dock again." The repetitions-with-difference of RE- suggest that the seemingly contradictory notions of stability and change are reciprocal.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2011

About the author

Kristi Maxwell currently lives and writes in Tucson. She is the author of Re-, Realm Sixty-four and Hush Sessions, along with the chapbook Elsewhere & Wise.

Reviews

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where there is a “crib laboratory, / lullabies are intravenously fed to the lovely cannibals.” Maxwell’s Re- is full of crib laboratories, each more foreign and pathogenic than the last. Physical maladies haunt the narrative of this he and she duo, but only after a fair amount of environmental maladies make themselves known. Thus, who can blame a body for taking the form of, or resisting, its environment? This transformation over the course of the book’s four sections (“cycles”) may be wholly expected, but still, each turn of phrase surprised and—I hesitate to use so brazen a verb to describe the zombied world of Re- —delighted me.

Maxwell has built an estranged world for She and He, and She and He are strange themselves. This is one strange couple I wouldn’t mind hanging out with.