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Room Where I Get What I Want
A house echoes with the footfalls of wild men running behind the walls in S. Whitney Holmes’s debut collection, Room Where I Get What I Want. Here in the house that is not a house, Holmes destabilizes the architectural structure by relishing in the details: a German man builds a mnemonic castle, a hero swallows a tulip bulb, and a woman opens a book to place in its hollowed center a gun. Debating space and intimacy, power and pleasure, Holmes constructs a spellbinding education as erotically charged as it is dangerous.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 15, 2016
I picked this up from the library after perusing some Black Ocean’s recent releases and was not disappointed.
I read a lot of poetry, and a lot of it is okay but doesn’t hit me hard, or it isn’t an aesthetic that I like, or it feels like fancy language is trying distract me from noticing a lack of real emotional investment… Holmes’ work here was none of those things for me. These poems are both playful and raw. Although they are filled with simple enough ideas like loss and memory and coming of age, they are also charged and expressive. And I am a huge fan how Holmes layers plain, unpretentious language with surrealism (or magical realism or whatever you want to call it). I think these poems elegantly walk the line between sentimentality and sentiment, and I feel awed by when she follows up some of her fantastical realities with very straightforward moments like this: "What were you ever doing / in my mother's house? Asking, / why remember the grocery list like this / when you could write it down?"
Overall, I felt connected to the poetic voice, and I think Holmes was thoughtful about echoing themes throughout the collection and creating a strong narrative arc.
I read a lot of poetry, and a lot of it is okay but doesn’t hit me hard, or it isn’t an aesthetic that I like, or it feels like fancy language is trying distract me from noticing a lack of real emotional investment… Holmes’ work here was none of those things for me. These poems are both playful and raw. Although they are filled with simple enough ideas like loss and memory and coming of age, they are also charged and expressive. And I am a huge fan how Holmes layers plain, unpretentious language with surrealism (or magical realism or whatever you want to call it). I think these poems elegantly walk the line between sentimentality and sentiment, and I feel awed by when she follows up some of her fantastical realities with very straightforward moments like this: "What were you ever doing / in my mother's house? Asking, / why remember the grocery list like this / when you could write it down?"
Overall, I felt connected to the poetic voice, and I think Holmes was thoughtful about echoing themes throughout the collection and creating a strong narrative arc.
April 11, 2017
These are very good poems, "Aubade" especially.
April 26, 2017
I enjoyed the unexpected images and juxtapositions in these poems. They felt strange and familiar simultaneously.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews