Cusp

by Jennifer Grotz

Entre chien et loup — between dog and wolf. This French colloquialism for twilight informs Jennifer Grotz’s debut poetry collection, Cusp. A winner of this year’s Bakeless Prize for poetry, Grotz explores the peculiar territory of middleness — neither dark nor light, not quite familiar but not fully unknown. It is a place with its own dangers, its own road signs in a French tunnel remind drivers of their headlights in the temporary darkness; a scratchy recording of the last castrato highlights art’s uneasy coupling of inspiration and artifice. Personal, thoughtful, inquisitive, and introspective, these poems reveal Grotz’s varied influences, from the “quilted fields” of west Texas to a jazz club in Paris, from a sexy rodeo rider to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is the dizziness of the foreign and the strangeness of what’s all around that gives Cusp its energy, its vitality, signaling the arrival of a distinctive new voice in American verse.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[el]

the strongest sections of this collection for me were about landscape, and not simply straining tree branches or light racing across a windshield—specific places in texas and france, populated by characters fuller than a simple pronoun ("you"). the rest did little for me.

faves: "boulevard slick with rain," "ceramics" (grandma poem!), "alizarin crimson," "jazz in paris," "summary" (the best of grotz's more non-specific entries).

[Reisse Myy]

A spellbinding collection of poetry concerned with interstitial states. Grotz returns to ideas of “cusps” and “annunciations” throughout, building an architecture that functions like a load-bearing bridge across seas and sections.

The fragmentary meter and sharp line breaks generate an electric field that is both stimulating and rapturous. Sex, travel, small towns, traffic: each is rendered with a classical eye and an experimental freshness. Some of the imagery—wolves, especially—I could have gone without, but perhaps that is the inevitability of a first collection.

I was deeply moved, utterly transported and transfixed, lost in the worlds she conjures. Confessional and unforgettable.

[Kozbi BC]

It was really cool to read Jen’s first collection and see how much more her West Texas roots made their way into the book’s imagery compared to her newer collections

[K.C.]

o dear. grotz has written some of the poems i have had in the hopper, which is depressing on a number of levels, the least of which is feeling scooped. i think i can do better.

but at least four of these poems were about things that interested me. perhaps i should be glad to have found a kindred spirit?

[Kent]

What impresses me most about the book is the structure, and how respectful it is of what "cusp" might mean. With the first section, Grotz offers alternative definitions of the word, which is good. But, for me, my interest was piqued when the speaker's biography, and those transitions became the real focus.

[C]

I always feel bad giving lower ratings to collections of poetry that I feel are well-written.

Then I don't know at all what to say about them other than "This was well-written, but failed to really capture me."

So, there is that. It's a collection worth reading, by all means. It just isn't one that I am going to rave about for paragraphs.

[Leslie]

Tulane alum writes poetry.

[A. Johnson]

I may change my rating, having read this in the distracted preChristmas rush. I bought it because I read her commentary on poetry and she showed depth. Will revisit it.