Pricking

by Jessica Cuello

"In PRICKING, Cuello smoothly erases the present moment and foregrounds the terrors of sectarian conflict and religious oppression. Esclarmonde de Foix, Jeanne d'Arc, and the unfortunate victims of witch hunts tell their truths in spare personas and lyrics. Eloquent clarity and precision combine with lyrical understatement to give Cuello's poems a haunting resonance and make religious history and its consequence for women's lives immediate, disturbing, and poignant." —Janice Harrington

Genres: Poetry

71 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2016

About the author

Jessica Cuello is the author of LIAR, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize and Yours, Creature (JackLeg Press). Cuello is also the author of Pricking (Tiger Bark Press), Hunt (The Word Works), and three chapbooks: My Father’s Bargain, By Fire, and Curie. She has been a recipient of The Washington Prize, The CNY Book Award, The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, and a Saltonstall Writing Fellowship.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a marvelous book of persona poems written in three parts, covering episodes in early French history of religious intolerance and fear, particularly that which revolved around or focused its violence toward women of intelligence, capability, and talent. I first came to Cuello’s poems through her chapbook with Hyacinth Girl Press and this longer collection builds off of that work beautifully. Part of Cuello’s talent lies in her ability to make persona poems grounded in history (some of it obscure, some not) feel immediate and compelling — and even relevant to our own age of intolerance and fear. Through it all, though, Cuello emphasizes the resilience of women throughout time, despite the most extreme suffering: “The natural world is hard and dirt. / I want to scrape it off my skin.”