Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities

by Olena Kalytiak Davis

"[ Shattered Sonnets ] breathes life into American verse . . . [an] urgent and unrepentant collection."—Rick Moody, Poetry "This convulsive book [ Shattered Sonnets ]—at times funny, at times sick at heart—refracts and defends a wondrous light."—Edward Hirsch Olena Kalytiak Davis's Shattered Sonnets has earned "cult classic" status and is an unremittingly electrifying collection brimming with intelligence, humor, and ardor. Drawing on an impressive array of forebears including Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, and Sylvia Plath, Davis overhauls the sonnet and revitalizes the confessional style in poems that leave no convention unquestioned, no expectation unthwarted, no letter, spelling, or line break unconsidered. From "sweet reader, flannelled and tulled": You are cold. You are sick. You are silly.
Forgive me, kind Reader, forgive me, I had not intended to step this quickly this far
back. Reader, we had a quiet he&I, theparson &theclerk. Would I could, stead-fast, gracilefacile Reader! Last,
good Reader, tarry with me, jessa-mine Reader. Dar-
(jee)ling, bide! Bide, Reader, tired, and stay, stay, stray Reader, true. I had been secretly hoping this would turn into a love
poem. Disconsolate. Illiterate. Reader,
I have cleared this space for you, for you, for you. Olena Kalyiak Davis is the author of three books of poetry and currently works as a lawyer in Anchorage, Alaska.

Genres: Poetry

110 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2003

About the author

American poet Olena Kalytiak Davis was born in 1963. She is the author of two poetry collections: 'And Her Soul Out Of Nothing' and 'Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, And Other Off-And-Back Handed Importunities.'

Her first book won the Brittingham Prize. Her other honors include a a 1996 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in poetry, and a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry.

Her poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including AGNI, Field, Indiana Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Poetry Northwest, Post Road Magazine and in anthologies including 'Best American Poetry 1995' and 'Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century.'

She is a first-generation Ukrainian-American, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan. She has since lived in Chicago, Lviv, Paris, Prague, San Francisco and the Yup'ik community of Bethel, Alaska, and she currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

She was educated at Wayne State University, University of Michigan Law School, and Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also a contributing editor at 'The Alaska Quarterly Review.'

Reviews

[Kimberly Lambright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Person interviewing OKD: You use space in many inspired and unique ways. Words run together -- "forgoodisthelifeendingfitandfaithfully." Broken apart -- "Hall /-ucinated." Otherwise altered --"thekingmyfather'swrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrack." How do you make these decisions?


OKD: How do we make any decisions? I mean, in the same way we/I make any decisions. Logic. Aesthetics. Discretion. Permission. Mood. Feelings. Luck. The same way you pick a pink t-shirt over a blue one. Vodka over gin. Free verse over a sestina. Hopkins/Dickinson/Berrigan over Blake/Whitman/Ashberry. Alaska over France. To dye your hair blonde. To have children. To take a lover. To get a divorce. I meant: To get a divorce. To take a lover.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olena Kalytiak Davis is involved in a torrid love affair. This woman loves words like nobody's business. It's almost frightening. I almost think these poems should be read aloud, not ever just read. It should come with a recording of someone reading them. Davis relies on a lot of rhymes and a lot of variations of words. Occasionally, it's difficult to finish some of these poems, because I spent so much time trying to figure out what she was attempting to stay. By the end of it, though, I kind of just gave up and let the words kind of carry me along. She has some phenomenal lines:


if you find yourself

in my hereafter (do not be alarmed)...


from "despite ominous forebodings of sin sickness and death" and:


i am loud in your Sickness
you are Gnashing my Teeth
in vain.


from "o great slacker"

In the end, this is not an easy collection of poetry to get through. But if you enjoy poetry and are accustomed to the sometimes erratic nature of the beast, it's definitely worth the trouble.

[Edita · Rating 2 out of 5]

O, to be stung by an errant bee. O, to sting.
O, to see you again. Covered in spring.

[Nicholas Rombes · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an age of literature that seems to be all about niceness and empathy and sugary confessionalism, I respect Davis's uncompromising blunt-force poetry.

"I pack, unpack my orange streaked,
My freakèd heart. With me I bring
My prosthetic soul. Under the newly dis-astering
Stars I dis-limn, dis-orb, dis-robe."

No wonder Kalytiak operates at the margins. Her poems are toxic, disturbing things, and so very beautiful.

[CLIF · Rating 5 out of 5]

Olena Kalytiak Davis writes with brashness and brio, with chutzpah and word-drunk humor in these free verse sonnets. They are indeed "shattered," and gloriously so. The poems may contain any number of lines and the lines may contain any number of syllables. No 14-line, iambic pentameter Italian or Elizabethan sonnets for her. Davis' rhymes, if and when she employs them, are almost always internal (sometimes deliciously, playfully so). She rarely uses end rhyme, which makes it all the more surprising and pleasing when she does.

Davis writes with an ardor for language that we see in only the most word-besotted-and-bewitched, -pissed-and-pixilated poets. To steal lines from Coleridge's "Kubla Khan," Davis "on honey-dew hath fed, / And drunk the milk of Paradise." Her poems own their own singular pitch and tuning, rhythm and motion. Some might describe her compulsive, spendthrift, go-for-broke free association as as a limiting stylistic tic, as an eccentric and maybe even irritating device. But I see in it the same fervor and ferocity that impelled Keats and Hopkins, that animated and consumed Thomas and Plath.

Here are a few lines from "the unbosoming" that should give a sense of the unconstrained delight this word-ravished poet can offer:
I have Seen / How lovely, Lord, how lovely You are, Lord, but I refused to kneel. / I Refuse to knell Your loveliness. I refuse to kiss. And I refuse to tell. I am unwilling, Love. / I am unwell. Unkempt. My hideous loins, Love, which is all Wrack / And screw, Love. All slack and crewel. At your beck and call, Love, at His Beck and call. Crestfallen, Love. Of the fallen breast. Un-clean of eye. Loose of Thigh. Ridiculous, Love. Most serious, Love. Unshod. Unshriven. In vain and in Rain, / Love. I Live and I Wire. I Wive, Lord, but I Fathom Not."

If this ardent wordplay sets spark to your synapses and blood, you shouldn't hesitate an instant longer. You should Read This Book!

[Joe]

I liked a number of poems in the middle. People told me I would. Maybe the way the voice reverses direction line by line. & the whole book has a certain rare propulsiveness, all 125pgs of it. But the first and last sections felt like just screwing around--obligatory setting up and breaking down of themes--devotion, love--wearing the sonnet on the sleeve.

Berrigan references were interesting. Interesting that other clear antecedents were left out--Berryman, cummings.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging, experimental and often purposefully, maddeningly impenetrable - but brilliant, nonetheless. I have to admit, I love words and sounds nearly as much as Davis seems to, though I'm not nearly so adept at letting them have free reign over my poems (to the point of suspending all sense of both narrative logic and traditional grammar rules) the way Davis does. For that reason, I find many of the poems in this collection incredibly admirable and brave. Not all of them make sense in any coherent way, which can be frustrating, but they're still such a delight to read and hear, and their impact is really all emotional anyway, in which case logic often doesn't come into the equation much at all. The ones that hit really hit, like "Dear Reader, Flannelled and Tulled," which is one of the most powerful opening poems I've ever come across. And the ones that don't quite manage to work as a whole are still fun and intriguing and whimsical in their own ways. I read Davis' first collection, And Her Soul Out of Nothing, a couple years ago and enjoyed it a lot but also remember it as incredibly different from the poems here, so maybe I need to go back to it at some point and search out the similarities. At any rate, I think this one affected me more immediately and forcefully, and I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

[john steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book changed my poetic a lot. and led me back to spicer and chaucer.

[Molly M M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also grand, and more experimental, but I liked the first better.

I am in possession of an original copy of a poem in her future third book. She signed a new poem for me! I love her.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this, particularly the poems "sweet reader, flanneled and tulled" and "notes toward the ablation of the soul."

[Melzanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

weird, pastiche-ish, slipping from form to non-form to form in a circle, okd challenges what makes poetry good, and really, what makes poetry. again, you rock okd.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, is she kooky or what?

[Andrea Conarro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could I do this? I think I could.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

"You always knew you could not keep god's attention."

[Em H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way Davis plays with language and tone in this collection, and how well-read it is. There are so many fantastic literary/classical references--it's just wonderful. Do recommend!

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read it for school. Did not get most of it. Probably just above my poetry reading level.

[Sara Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is worth everything for 'six apologies, lord' and 'if you are asked.'

Davis uses some methods of action poetry (consider 'poem for my #*th birthday' in which she writes "tomorrow, in honor of my birthday: DO NOT REVISE / THIS / poem"), e.e. cumming's rejection of capitalization and creative use of punctuation. Davis' poetry often exists at the intersection of 13-year-old-on-the-internet (with her use of multiple '!!!!!' and all-caps for emphasis) and archaic medieval nun, singing hypnotic hymns and tangled with repressed (or expressed) sexuality. She cites Berrigan as an influence, and Hopkins and Keats.

My personal preference is for her poems concerned with religion, the addressed 'o' to a god of ablation, of removal, to a soul that errs and errs well.

Certainly worth reading, though I'd steer you to 'And Her Soul Out of Nothing' first.

[Helen · Rating 2 out of 5]

My rating is largely based on being a poetry rube, so keep that in mind. I just didn't get much from this volume. As another reviewer has noted, these are really poems to be read aloud. There's a lot of word-play and stylistic choices that fall flat on the page that may come to life when aloud. I just didn't 'get' a lot of it, and what I did get didn't do much for me so *shrugs*.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

(read for class)

One of those poetry collections where I’m impressed by how bendy and strange language can be, and while I felt at times bewitched by the frantic desperation of these poems, I wasn’t able to fully sink my teeth into anything substantial. We’ll see if my opinion changes after we talk about this book in class.

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

O, to be stung by an errant bee. O, to sting.
O, to see you again. Covered in spring.

[Elizabeth Wenger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good poems some not my style. Cool stuff playing with the language but I'm not sure if the content itself really will stick with me.

[Zappo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delicious

what words for these words? Words in top of words, stacked high on your plate, your palate, taste the cadence.

[anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

muscly writing.

[Adam Day · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odd the description’s focus on her magic with words. Her diction is so bland and unengaging.

[Melissa Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tried to read this book in 2007 and gave up . . . In 2013, I am baffled that I wasn't completely swept off of my feet on my first attempt. This is a brilliantly original book -- lewd, funny, inventive, playful. I wish I wrote it. Here are some favorite lines:

-"My body, which is all Wrack / And screw, Love. All slack and crewel."

-"I pack, unpack my orange streaked, / My freaked heart."

-"I was so weighed down: anchor-hearted, lead-souled."

"the first was a boy with a (volley) ball / he wrote me a (love) letter or two / i kissed him in a (ski) jacket / but he didn't recognize me in june."

-"greetings from my bubblebath"

-"the woods have transplanted themselves / outside my mullioned window splat / and this morning it quaked me awake"

-"i have decided that we do not want other people's (wives') husbands / as we do not want our own. // as we do not want our own."

-"i have not told anyone, but, / like marty running, i too have shat my pants"

-"your husband in the dark / among the dripping roses"

-"sometimes do you have to step outside your life / or, at least, outside your house, when it was (nay, is) late late / late at night to see how bright / and warm where you live is, was / how right?"

-"fuck me!, new: this crazy purple / toothbrush afloat in the complicated trash"

-"Finally! dickinson's and modigliani's sex exposed!"

-"augie and lyana (my winnowed minnows) swam synchronized / naps"

-"that book i stole from the juneau public library(and it was/is rare)y"

-"tomorrow, in honor of my birthday: DO NOT REVISE
THIS
poem
this
life
this
everything
and anything
(is something, ain't it, love?) love?"

-"know, though, you were her he- / and her -art."

-"you / were for all intensive care purposes / healthy as a fucking horse."

-"i would always see shirts that i would hang you in."

-"o. no. naught nautical. / sank there, drowned that."

-"my complexion: perfect / gallows."

-"little sister, leave the husbandry to the husband. / or leave the husbandry. / (or leave the Husband.)"

-"you are parsley and paradise."

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's this sense that I have in reading Davis' later work that she intends her writing for a non-audience--if read aloud, these poems lack the revisionary tactics of her idiosyncratic punctuation styles, but if read solely as text without being verbalized the blunt rhymes and alliterations do not have the same force. Perhaps that's the point: Davis has never compromised herself on behalf of literary tradition and has never addressed a collective when she could speak directly to the reader.

Ultimately, I have to conclude over and over again that my personal preference remains with the writing style used in Davis' first collection--And Her Soul Out of Nothing--despite the incredible linguistic power that she wields in her verse as a more mature writer. This is a purely subjective viewpoint and as such I am trying to clarify my position and my rating of this book as three stars. To the more experimental writer who disdains formalism, this is probably a stellar piece of work.

[Eleanor]

I hesitated to enter this book... then realized my hesitation was because of just how interior, deeply internal, the poems are. They seem to come from the place where language and emotion and memory all blend together.

Some of the poems I loved; others I questioned because the "wordplay" seemed more that -- play -- than the uncensored oomph of most of the book. OVerall, a scary book, and darkly funny, and very good.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow...this one is ...well, I don't quite have the words but I bet OKD would. Verbal acrobatics accurately describes this collection, but those gymnastics got in the way of my ability to connect with these poems. I really wanted to like this, but I abandoned it as each poem started feeling more and more like a struggle to get through and to understand than the one before. Liked "And Her Soul Out of Nothing" much better.

[Lacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmmph. This book was okay, but it didn't change my life the way And Her Soul Out of Nothing did - the language is very playful and I can appreciate that, but...but.

[Liza]

i loved this emotionally, esp "sweet reader, flanneled and tulled"