Plucked

by Miracle Thornton

In her debut chapbook, Miracle Thornton offers an imaginative portrait of black girlhood. In an effort to understand how we come to know ourselves, the poems interrogate fraught intimate and communal spaces. From the pews of a Baptist church or shushing through the halls of a home in the night, Thornton’s poems are sensitive to the at once suffocating and wonderful complexities of love, the body, and home. Inspired in part by the Aesop fable “A Jackdaw and Peacock Feathers,” the figure of a dejected black bird haunts the page. The jackdaw acts as a mirror or a window which the speaker runs against and away from at turning points in her life. Tender and gilded, plucked thrums with a delicate force.

Genres: Poetry

32 pages

Published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Mattie-Bretton Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I understood the overall theme of this poetry collection, most of the poems felt difficult to comprehend. Written in fractured lines with minimal exposition, I couldn't get a picture going in my mind. It felt like serated images thrown together that didn't quite make sense to me. Poetry is subjective, and this collection was leaning a bit too esoteric for me.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Thornton is talented beyond her years. She has a great future ahead of her in Poetry World.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am missing the point of these poems. Who is dead? Who is sick? Who is damaged? What is Plucked? With artful use of syntax and line breaks, the author sidesteps direct meaning, leaving me, the reader, to wonder what just happened. I have much to think about and to return to in this Rattle Chapbook winner.

[Sylvia Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes i think my brain is too ADHD and literal to understand some poetry, and this was partly the case here - but only partly. Other pieces I totally loved and understood and read more than once through, enjoying it each time. Sometimes I think it can be the Emporers new clothes with poetry, the more obscure the better, but I am more than willing to say no it is my brain that cannot makes the necessary leaps. But I don't even like some of my own poetry sometimes as much as other pieces I write, so it is such an arbitrary thing - liking poetry after all - deffo worth a read whatever you think of this review

[Thackery Prince · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent debut, a deep & thought inducing work.

also reading this while reading the color purple at the same time made everything HIT a little differently -- that's a personal experience but hey, others might wanna give it a try.

[Ja'net · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive debut!

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite poem of this collection was False Idols.

[Luanne Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, heart-breaking poems that together tell a mosaic story.

[kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

unsurprisingly smart, sharp, and brilliant

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impressive work for someone so young!