The Glimmering Room

by Cynthia Cruz

Fierce and fearless, The Glimmering Room beckons readers down into the young speaker's dark underworld, and because we are seduced by Cruz's startling imagery and language rich with "Death's outrageous music," we follow willingly. Peopled with "ambassadors from the Netherworld"--the orphaned and abused, the lost and addicted--Cruz leads us through this "traveling minstrel show / Called girlhood--" which is at once tragic and magical.

Genres: Poetry

87 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2012

About the author

Cynthia Cruz is the author of Ruin (Alice James Books) as well as The Glimmering Room, Wunderkammer and How the End Begins (all from Four Way Books). She is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and a Hodder Fellowship. An essayist and art writer, her first collection of essays, Notes Toward a New Language is forthcoming. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and is currently a doctoral student in Germanic Language and Literature.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one hell of a book of poetry. Each poem is lean and muscular. I was particularly interested in the line breaks which often feel unexpected, almost harsh and really control how the poems are read. Eleven is outstanding. Really every poem is a bright light. I love the starkness of the imagery, the relentless of the themes of bodies and violence and the troubles young girls face.

Really glad to discover this new to me poet.

[Therese L. Broderick · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a teenager, my beautiful teenage cousin died -- perhaps from her diagnosed anorexia, perhaps from a drug overdose (intentional or unintentional). I'll never fully understand her tormented psyche, but the exquisitely excruciating poems in Cynthia Cruz's The Glimmering Room enable me to bear witness to various young lives which are similarly tormented: the self-starving girl, the girl whose candy habit becomes a drug habit, the girl who doesn't want to be merely the twinkle in her father's eye, the girl who wants to be healed by St. Francis. Each of these denuded, stark poems is a trauma unit for encountering "the small massacres of childhood" (page 27). If Soul is another way to say Sanity (per Robert Frost), then the poetry in this book serves no less vital a purpose than to save the souls of kids and teens. Here are pages after pages of Word "warding off" Wards -- metaphorical wards such as America's toxic shopping malls, trailer parks, truck stops, bus stations, jail cells, train yards, fitness gyms, Army barracks, phone booths, doll houses. As an adult living in 2012, I can't do anything now to bring back that beautiful girl who died in college. This book reminds me that countless other girls still need help. To see them, all I have to do is look up from the page

[Richard S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book of poetry, Cynthia Cruz’s best.

[jenni · Rating 3 out of 5]

disaster-chic with a clinical vibe

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Glimmering Room is a coming of age story, but not your regular bildungsroman. In this world, girls are asked to grow up too fast, to be sexual before their time. In this world, teenagers are sent to mental wards because they react to the expectations placed upon them. These poems remind us that growing up cannot only be difficult, but terrifying. Young men and women get bullied, depressed, and medicated. In this world, we find silent girls and broken boys.

Read the rest of the review at The Rumpus:

http://therumpus.net/2013/03/the-glim...

[Eli Tubbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cynthia Cruz is always stunning. I found this collection as lesser to "Wunderkammer" but it was still exciting and kept my finger turning the page desiring more. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poems.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great release from Four Way—these are dangerous, interesting poems. Cruz might be my new poetic hero.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems tell a dark, tortured story. Compelling, though. Sort of like a train wreck. I feel like I could read them over and over again, but the sadness gets too itchy and suffocating.

[Tara Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark and strangely coherent. This collection is one that I can see unfolding a new layer with every reading.

[Holly · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first book I read by Cynthia Cruz was Wunderkammer, and I liked it so much I immediately bought three more of her books.

But this is adolescent trash.

I see that it was favorably reviewed by the NY Times and compared to CK Williams. I can't stand CK Williams--A Dream of Mind is, along with this one, among the few books of poetry I've given one star to--so if Cruz writes in his tradition, I guess it makes sense that I can't stand this.

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Her loneliness is so brutal,/ It is beautiful./ It has its own language./ It is female and it goes like this./ I wish I had just let myself die, then” (24)

“How I miss that summer/ When there was no world” (26)

“It’s true: the world ran out/ And the jewel they put inside us” (27)

“The shame of being/ Seen consumes me” (31)

“I hope you’ve collected your lies/ In your exquisite/ Notebook” (50)

“The queer moon beating silently/ Under its creamy scum./ When I awoke/ From the phone call/ That never came,/ I knew why/ God made me… The voice of children live on inside us./ Strange sister,/ Walk into the white sun/ With me” (79)

[Trace · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The American dream / is piss-stained, anyway. / I've got my father's power / And he got his / From dreams."

girlhood is a sentence, and the kids are lost. the american dream is spent past poverty and morals. deadpan, drug-hazy narration with clinical, sleazy imagery. light emerges from the dark and bleak in the forms of a fluorescent-lit hospital ward or glitter worn by a child prostitute. a re-read of one of the first poetry books (better, a narrative poem) in my personal library.

[Noah Doser · Rating 2 out of 5]

took me a month to remember the title of this one. Uhhhhhhhhh, it's good? I think. Frankly, forgettable but it was another Santee recommendation and I got a few solid picks from it. Like many other recs from him, it's just not what I'm looking for right now so I couldn't resonate as much as others may have.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite of Cruz's. The Glimmering Room is a taut and tragic collection that somehow weaves a terrifying narrative with perfectly crafted, sparse poems. Each ending a surprise, each image as rich and terrible as the last.

[Rebecca Valley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes no prisoners. A beautiful book about the particular traumas of girls, w/ such a vivid backdrop of garbage and poverty and abuse and glitter and nail polish and candy. Reads more like one long narrative poem.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this gem as a giveaway at a wedding & reception that was held in a library!
What a surprise to discover a new-to-me poet. I am impressed with how many images are evoked in few words. Cruz has a talent for showing rather than telling. I will be sure to read more of her works.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The power grew with each page, each poem. Some of my favorite moments:

Childhood, that delicious coma.

The commonplace cruelties of imperfection.

How I miss that summer when there was no world.

The shame of being seen consumes me.

Heaven was a sexless slumber party.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The brutalism of Kathy Acker but not the same playful appeal to shock. Instead, these read genuine, tired, so tired. The most moving collection I've read in a while.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful imagery but i couldn't sense the rhythm or feeling

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dysfunctional childhood and its fallout crafted in impeccable images and surprising twists of phrases simultaneously delight and horrify.

[maydha · Rating 5 out of 5]

my wonderful poetry teacher at sarah lawrence wrote this. was glad to read something as gorgeous and kind as her teaching.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense, traumatic, heart-wrenching, powerful.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fully realized world but painted with a somewhat limited palette of colors.

[Carina Stopenski · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh, the brutal theatre of addiction and self-destruction

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I was not expecting to enter this intense and intimate and scary and sad world. Beautiful.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Sylvia Plath meets Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. A brutal, beautiful book.

[Courtney Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cynthia Cruz’s poetry will resonate with tortured souls. Her words are acidic, maimed, and sad. Her words are from the stories of the abused, the sick, and the unwanted. One poem reads: “Childhood, that delicious coma./And us girls, with our pink plush/Unicorns, smashed on Paxil at the edge.”

Another touches on child abuse and the echo that abuse carries into young adulthood: “My friend Billy dressed as a boy./She cut her long blonde hair off/So that her father would stop/Always touching her./Night is when death and his daughters arrive./All of us, orphans and fucked/Feral children.” Written like a contemporary Sylvia Plath, this book is for the dregs of society.

I did not enjoy reading these poems, but I am glad they exist. I think that many teens do not grow up in happy, supportive homes. Some children are dealt bad cards in life, and have to manage their trauma. If they can find an outlet through reading, poetry, art, or writing, then libraries can be ready to help them. Providing books like this can help a young person feel less alone in this world.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. That's all I can say about it. It's one of my favorite poetry books.

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disturbing. Sad. Yeah, these are hard.

[Simeon Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Micro-blurb: apocalyptic reports from the fractal edge of livid America.