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onus
41 pages, Paperback
Published August 6, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 18, 2025
onus
poems
devon fulford
Alien Buddha Press 2025
Reviewer: Bill Ursel, 2025.
Onus; meaning; Latin; load, burden, weight. The meaning of the title carries significant weight throughout the work.
Poet Devon Fulford writes on multiple themes that confront generational abuse, sex, and trauma. The thirteen poem anthology dances between elegy, free verse, and narrative styes. The words are compelling with a nod at one point to ekphrastic work (“gwen stefani knew it all along”) I share my thoughts on two compelling poems in the collection.
Why don’t you have children?
There is a direct telling of patriarchy by proxy with “scores of sons chimed in with their own ravenous desire to beat a woman senseless . . .” I hear the clarity of the fundamental foundation that a woman, any woman chooses the road she takes, whenever she can. The narrative voice tells the reader that she will do many things including “become friends with my own play.”
Body is
Fulford shares that the body is many things, ferryboat, a channel, a splash of water, a secret dance floor. The body is also a weight, burdensome with a collection of stories to tell and voices reverberating, always. She references the visceral element of the body “it’s the sound of mouth with fingernails pushed inside . . .” (another poem punk flesh decadence also references nails “a mouthful of chalkboard nails scraping down the sidewalk . . "
I highly recommend this work for the intensity of feeling and the fire that burns within each turn of phrase. Devon Fulford is an important poet for the 21st century reader.
poems
devon fulford
Alien Buddha Press 2025
Reviewer: Bill Ursel, 2025.
Onus; meaning; Latin; load, burden, weight. The meaning of the title carries significant weight throughout the work.
Poet Devon Fulford writes on multiple themes that confront generational abuse, sex, and trauma. The thirteen poem anthology dances between elegy, free verse, and narrative styes. The words are compelling with a nod at one point to ekphrastic work (“gwen stefani knew it all along”) I share my thoughts on two compelling poems in the collection.
Why don’t you have children?
There is a direct telling of patriarchy by proxy with “scores of sons chimed in with their own ravenous desire to beat a woman senseless . . .” I hear the clarity of the fundamental foundation that a woman, any woman chooses the road she takes, whenever she can. The narrative voice tells the reader that she will do many things including “become friends with my own play.”
Body is
Fulford shares that the body is many things, ferryboat, a channel, a splash of water, a secret dance floor. The body is also a weight, burdensome with a collection of stories to tell and voices reverberating, always. She references the visceral element of the body “it’s the sound of mouth with fingernails pushed inside . . .” (another poem punk flesh decadence also references nails “a mouthful of chalkboard nails scraping down the sidewalk . . "
I highly recommend this work for the intensity of feeling and the fire that burns within each turn of phrase. Devon Fulford is an important poet for the 21st century reader.
Displaying 1 of 1 review