Inconsolable Objects

by Nancy Miller Gomez

Part cautionary tale, part love letter to the broken objects and people
of the world, Inconsolable Objects is driven by the search for beauty in
the forsaken. Gomez offers poems that are a call and response to all of
us stumbling towards connection and offer a hopeful glimpse into the
mysteries of our shared experience.

In Inconsolable Objects, Nancy Miller Gomez writes from within shadow.
She writes doubt and exhalation and loss. With an enviable lyrical
assurance, she writes brilliantly of the moments we convince ourselves
we’ve forgotten, those wide insistent moments that confound and
challenge us as parent, as spouse, as daughter or son, as human. To read
this revelatory work is to lose yourself in its muscled melody, its courage,
its resounding truths. Inconsolable Objects is a debut that will rattle the
rafters. — Patricia Smith

Inconsolable Objects is also a collection of survival, transporting us into the experience of the speaker with Gomez’s keen ability to sketch a character via a precise gesture or two. In skillfully observed portraits, the poet shines an unsparing light on father, mother, child. She faces complex truths and concludes, “I like to think there is part of me / that isn’t afraid.” This is a vital voice full of hard-earned compassion and wisdom, mixing memory with ferocity in ways that will make you gasp. — Ellen Bass

Nancy Miller Gomez writes about the heroic business of being alive in a
world that mostly doesn’t see or acknowledge our essential aloneness.
Her writing is complex and real and strange and beautiful—I can’t say how
much it moves me. — Dorianne Laux

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

Published May 21, 2024

About the author

Nancy Miller Gomez is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books, 2024) and the chapbook Punishment (Rattle Chapbook Series). Her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, Prairie Schooner, The Adroit Journal, New Ohio Review, Shenandoah, The Rumpus, Rattle, and elsewhere. She co-founded an organization that provides writing workshops to incarcerated women and men and has taught poetry in Salinas Valley State Prison, the Santa Cruz County Jails and Juvenile Hall. She received her J.D. from the University of San Diego and her MFA in Poetry from Pacific University. She lives with her family in Santa Cruz, California.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5) Nancy Miller Gomez’s debut collection recalls a Midwest girlhood of fairground rides and lake swimming; tornadoes and cicadas. But her remembered Kansas is no site of rose-tinted nostalgia. “Missing History” notes how women’s stories, such as her grandmother’s, are lost to time. A pet snake goes missing and she imagines it haunting her mother. And in “Tilt-A-Whirl,” her older sister’s harmless flirtation with a ride operator turns sinister:

we went faster, and faster,
though by then we had begun to scream Stop!

Please stop! Until our voices grew hoarse
beneath the clattering pivots and dips,

the air filling with diesel and cigarettes, and the man
at the control stick, waiting for us

to spin toward him again, and each time he cocked his hand
as if sighting prey down the barrel of a gun.

“Mothering” likewise eschews the cosy for images of fierce protection. The poet documents the death of her children’s father and abides with a son enduring brain scans and a daughter in recovery from heroin addiction. She wreaks “Vengeance” on a cheating husband and lives through her parents’ deaths. Gomez also takes ideas from the headlines, with poems about the Ukraine invasion, species extinction, and an unsolicited dick pic shared via the cloud in a subway car. There is a prison setting in two poems in a row – she has taught Santa Cruz County Jail poetry workshops.

I particularly appreciated “The Invisible Mother,” inspired by the Victorian practice of photographing children with their mothers hidden in the background; “Heavens to Betsy,” concerning her mother’s love of sayings (my mother, too; a favourite exclamation was “Great Caesar’s ghost!”); and “Domain,” about her fascination with her body, even as it ages:

Crow’s feet and cackle lines.
The foundation of my face settling in
for the long haul, each year my body becoming
more and more familiar.

The alliteration and slant rhymes are to die for, and I love the cover (Owl Collage by Alexandra Gallagher) and the frequent bird metaphors. There’s an edge of sadness and danger that reminds me of Lo by Melissa Crowe. I recognized much of the emotional territory of childhood, as I did with Sarah Manguso’s Very Cold People, even if the particulars are very different from my own upbringing. It’s always exciting to discover a writer who sees the world in the same way as I do, and can write about it in gorgeous verse.

[Tamara Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerhouse of a book, each poem is a gut punch. These are poems you will keep with you to reread because you need them. The language is exquisite without being precious, elevating the ordinary, transforming the extraordinary.

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gomez’ Inconsolable Objects is a grace. Full of taut, unforgettable poems.

Inconsolable Objects is an alchemy of a book. Filled with stellar poems, these taut works hold my attention long after reading and re-reading. Her poems bring me as a reader to ask life sharper questions, from places uncomfortable and buried. This book blows cracks wide open, urging me to examine more closely my own life where violences and disregard for my better self have taken hold in plain sight. 

This light lets love and hope take hold: these poems are a grace. 

[Laurie Guerin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read this book. Read it from back to front or front to back or start in the middle. Or start by reading just the last few lines of each poem (though I don't know that the author would recommend this). Even if you don't consider yourself an aficionado of poetry. Do whatever it takes to enter the odd, tender, heart-rending spell of Nancy Miller Gomez's world.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely enjoyed every single poem in this collection. Really simple and evocative and deeply moving.
.
Another great addition from my The Rumpus poetry subscription!!!

[quinnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inconsolable Objects is a gorgeous collection by a wonderful poet. These poems are full of arresting images, provocative questions, and brilliant language. I read an early release copy of the book, which comes out in May, 2024. I recommend buying it (and copies for your friends who love poetry too). I know I will be.

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inconsolable Objects is unforgettable. Dark, haunting, brilliant. A collection I will read again and again, and will treasure always. I highly recommend it!

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about love, loss, survival, and memory.

from Snapshot: "I was a hand grenade of a girl / vacuum packed into a dress // that bound my body / like a bandage staunching a wound. // My arms were cinched in tourniquets / of tulle, my throat choked in a rage // of lace. I'd hacked my hair into chaos."

from Crescent Moon: "I'm still finding the landmines you left. / Like today, when our daughter turned her head / and I saw the dimple that used to bloom / in a crescent moon on the right side of your smile, / and all that love came rushing back."

from We All Fall Down: "Could it be, even after death / love expands? We scooped up / what was left and dropped it from the balcony / like snow."

[Ronnie Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nancy Miller Gomez interrogates the body masterfully in her debut full-length collection, Inconsolable Objects. Gomez quickly and frequently demonstrates her keen ability to layer subtle, lyrical language with fierce images as she considers the correlation between the body as self and the body as object. The poems delve into the concrete and the surreal, considering how the objects we encounter align with and establish parts of ourselves. This book is full of power and grit—a bold and exciting debut.

Inconsolable Objects is a truly remarkable treatment of the body, and of objects as archives of memory. Gomez offers deeply nuanced, complex metaphors in her debut. This is a book you will want to read slowly, repeatedly.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Inconsolable Objects” touched me like no other poetry collection ever has. There are no skips in this book. Nancy Miller Gomez has an extraordinary ability to incorporate the most sensory and gut wrenching imagery. Everything from the structure to the syntax to the messages makes “inconsolable objects” one of the best books I have ever read. I was so impossibly moved by all of these poems, and I am excited to see more of Nancy Miller Gomez in the future.

The top five poems that had the most emotional impact on me were (even though literally every poem impacted me) (in no particular order):
Resurrection
How to Forget
Coachwhip
Lost
Leopard Eats Meditating Monk

Extra honorable mentions: CT Scan, Tilt-A-Whirl, and Confession

[Skylar Miklus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancy Miller Gomez's debut is a powerhouse of a poetry collection. Her diction is assertive and urgent as she offers love to all the broken things in the universe. She interrogates the often-unseen role of the mother, the mark that humanity leaves on the world, and the dangers inherent to intimate relationships. Throughout the poems, she is unrestrained and unsentimental, yet filled with tenderness for all things that strive. My favorite poems were "Snapshot" and "The Invisible Mother." I am grateful to YesYes Books for the ARC; available May 21.

[Emily Sernaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancy Miller Gomez's poetry is brave, brilliant and totally original. There are poems in here - from "We All Fall Down" to "Kansas" to "CT Scan" to "Sanctuary" - that have stayed with me long after the initial reading. Her empathy, eye, imagination and craft make this a book I will teach from and return to for personal growth, creative inspiration and intellectual engagement again and again. I can't recommend it enough.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was probably my favorite book of poetry of the year. Nancy Miller Gomez tells stories that are so deeply recognizable, but then so often caps them off with a devastating line or two that explodes everything into a whole new bit of truth and perspective. From rides on the Tilt a Whirl at a Kansas fair, to insights from teaching poetry in jails, to responses to current events in the news, every poem brings something insightful and unexpected.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful read. Miller Gomez has an eye for the forgotten, abandoned and quirky things of the world. Whether she is describing herself as a child ("a hand grenade of a girl"), birds that mimic the sounds of war, the man behind the counter at the DMV, or an apple seedling growing in prison, she brings insight and compassion into every finely-crafted poem.

[Andrea Janov · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the first line of the first poem, I was in. Where has Nancy Miller Gomez been my whole life. She shows that the next generations of rebellious women poets is alive and doing very well. So many lines and images in these poems that I wished that I had written. Cannot wait to read more of her work.

[Tammi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book in two sittings. It's one of those rare page turner collections! Each poem balances beautiful technique with vulnerability and complex emotion. I particularly loved "Baby Facing the Wrong Way at the Country Jail," and "How to Forget "

[Elizabeth Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard the poet on a Zoom reading and promptly bought the book (yes it does happen). I took several days to read it, savoring my way along. I dog-eared so many pages my copy is now much thicker. I won’t list all the titles here. Go buy the book, or request it at your local library.

[Lisa Iacovissi Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this collection! Her poems will stay with you long after you’ve read them. Nancy Miller Gomez is an amazing poet, and I highly recommend Inconsolable Objects. I can’t wait for her next collection to be published!

[Jill Mceldowney · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful debut.

[Alex Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful!

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancy Miller Gomez is our current Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate- a well-deserved honor, demonstrated by this collection of provocative poems. Brilliant, insightful, haunting. I highly recommend it!

[Lindsay Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this collection of poems. Highly recommend.