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Surgical Wing
“In Surgical Wing , you will find yourself in phone booths, county fairs, fishing boats, and among ghosts. Strange birds will enter hospital waiting rooms. You will be seduced by knot-makers. You will witness illness, grief, and healing. Finally, the book itself will become the wings that steer you to a greater understanding of yourself and the world.” —Anna Silver In Surgical Wing , surrealistic poems visit an experimental hospital ward, manifesting visions of winged angels and medical tests, as we bear witness to a doctor’s’ meddling and miracles. Robertson’s poems challenge the internal and external metamorphoses of the human condition and the juxtaposition between death and life by personifying the soul through images of birds. From “You’re About to Fold a Paper Airplane”: Build evidence of air. Pull the results of your blood test
from the mailbox. Fold in you have wings already. Abnormal? Fold again. You can’t see the inner-workings
of an aircraft. And when you’re folding, you can’t study much else. Book your tumor markers a flight to Bora Bora.
Vector, Victor. Clearance, Clarence. On any scrap of paper write carry . Write heavenward . Write I choose this over you .
Replace this . With flying . With peregrination . Or write I can’t fear you another morning . And fold. Kristin Robertson is a native of East Tennessee, and she graduated with a PhD in creative writing from Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Review , Indiana Review , TriQuarterly , Third Coast , and Verse Daily , among other journals. Kristin lives outside Los Angeles and teaches at the University of California, Riverside.
from the mailbox. Fold in you have wings already. Abnormal? Fold again. You can’t see the inner-workings
of an aircraft. And when you’re folding, you can’t study much else. Book your tumor markers a flight to Bora Bora.
Vector, Victor. Clearance, Clarence. On any scrap of paper write carry . Write heavenward . Write I choose this over you .
Replace this . With flying . With peregrination . Or write I can’t fear you another morning . And fold. Kristin Robertson is a native of East Tennessee, and she graduated with a PhD in creative writing from Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Review , Indiana Review , TriQuarterly , Third Coast , and Verse Daily , among other journals. Kristin lives outside Los Angeles and teaches at the University of California, Riverside.
- GenresPoetry
100 pages, Paperback
First published May 16, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 10, 2024
A stunning, complicated collection. I’ve dipped in and out of this collection a few years now and finally sat down and read the poems in order over a few days. Favorites: “Driving to My Friend’s House to Assist Her Suicide,” “Haint Ceilings,” “Crane Wife,” “Loon,” “Birdwatchers.”
May 17, 2017
This book is stunning!
July 10, 2017
Surgical Wing
Kristin Robertson
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman
Kristin Robertson opens her collection with an image of herself as a Phoenix rising from the flames of a neighbor's bonfire. She has survived surgery and longs to fly free. Her poems are populated by winged creatures: angels, birds, and mythical beasts. They are also home to people who struggle against dark forces to survive. She juxtaposes sickness and death against health and healing in a unique inspiring and unified statement.
Kristin Robertson
Reviewed by Ray Zimmerman
Kristin Robertson opens her collection with an image of herself as a Phoenix rising from the flames of a neighbor's bonfire. She has survived surgery and longs to fly free. Her poems are populated by winged creatures: angels, birds, and mythical beasts. They are also home to people who struggle against dark forces to survive. She juxtaposes sickness and death against health and healing in a unique inspiring and unified statement.
September 9, 2017
Hauntingly beautiful. A must-read!
November 19, 2019
A surreal combination of hospitals and birds, pain and stream of consciousness poems.
June 24, 2022
Beautiful, macabre, and anxious: just how I like it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews