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I Don't Need to Make a Pretty Thing
Poetry. Women's Studies. "Michelle Reed's impressive debut, I DON'T NEED TO MAKE A PRETTY THING, is at once inquisitive, daring, and vulnerable as spirit clothed in the ordinary light of body, animated by a delight for living, by an abiding artistic honesty, and by the joy/fear in working closer toward what can be known. These poems embody an alert fidelity to form, shaped against a speculative consciousness, awake to music and to the pace of revelation, in an unflinching labor to trace and to translate a world—to 'weigh its shadow / in dried lavender / and steel,'—in learning to live and to love and to bravely claim one's sovereignty against all the voices of the past. I will treasure this illuminated book."—Chad Sweeney
- GenresPoetry
60 pages, Paperback
Published December 15, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 1, 2023
simply gorgeous!
February 13, 2017
‘I have to tell you the world is not what you want to be.’
Michigan poet Michele S. Reed makes an impressive debut with her first collection of her poems I DON’T NEED TO MAKE A PRETTY THING. Few poets in an overture exhibition can make such an indelible impression of one who views the world with such nascent but penetrating eyes and ideas and actions.
Michele’s poems sing, sometimes soto voce, sometimes without a sound to replace the impact of the view of something noticed and recorded in such a rare atmosphere. Contrasting emotions make each pole of her thoughts visible, credible. Some examples follow.
UPON WATCHING THE MURDER OF ANOTHER WOMAN IN A CRIME SCENE
I am amaze at how lovely
a corpse can be made
to look. Slight arc
of the neck, of the arms.
How the hands, purple now, curl
just so, how the toes
point as if she might
begin to dance. Precision
in the woman
cut down. I think
of Emily, killed months ago
in a subway tunnel,
left whole somehow
by passing trains.
It was twelve hours
before anyone noticed her
beneath the tracks, so small
she could have been
mistaken for an animal
that got in someone’s way.
LETTER FOR ANYONE
I miss you most at night
and when the morning glories
close. The sky sounds like an ocean here.
At home,
like a highway. I haven’t seen
a lily in this town, but every day
I watch the river stretching
toward its own end.
Maybe you will dream
about the moonlight tonight.
Maybe black bear cubs
and caddisflies will swarm
around your bed. Listen:
the moon folds inward, slowly,
the rain cradles near us.
Michelle Reed is a poet to watch – an alchemist who makes simple things complex and demystifies the world for us with her grace.
Michigan poet Michele S. Reed makes an impressive debut with her first collection of her poems I DON’T NEED TO MAKE A PRETTY THING. Few poets in an overture exhibition can make such an indelible impression of one who views the world with such nascent but penetrating eyes and ideas and actions.
Michele’s poems sing, sometimes soto voce, sometimes without a sound to replace the impact of the view of something noticed and recorded in such a rare atmosphere. Contrasting emotions make each pole of her thoughts visible, credible. Some examples follow.
UPON WATCHING THE MURDER OF ANOTHER WOMAN IN A CRIME SCENE
I am amaze at how lovely
a corpse can be made
to look. Slight arc
of the neck, of the arms.
How the hands, purple now, curl
just so, how the toes
point as if she might
begin to dance. Precision
in the woman
cut down. I think
of Emily, killed months ago
in a subway tunnel,
left whole somehow
by passing trains.
It was twelve hours
before anyone noticed her
beneath the tracks, so small
she could have been
mistaken for an animal
that got in someone’s way.
LETTER FOR ANYONE
I miss you most at night
and when the morning glories
close. The sky sounds like an ocean here.
At home,
like a highway. I haven’t seen
a lily in this town, but every day
I watch the river stretching
toward its own end.
Maybe you will dream
about the moonlight tonight.
Maybe black bear cubs
and caddisflies will swarm
around your bed. Listen:
the moon folds inward, slowly,
the rain cradles near us.
Michelle Reed is a poet to watch – an alchemist who makes simple things complex and demystifies the world for us with her grace.
February 15, 2017
I bought this book at AWP and I'm so glad I did. I opened it up to the poem "It's Sylvia's Birthday" and knew immediately I'd be going home with the book. That poem pulls no punches: "and wonder if she, like me / was always drawn to fire." and then "My heroines / are fierce and broken women." and ends with "A girl who collected stones / in her pockets for years / until she heard the story, / a girl who sometimes longs to touch / the black belly of the river." Damn. I mean DAMN. You can't walk away from a poem like that. Or at least, I couldn't. After I'd taken a day to recover from AWP I sat down with this book and read it in one sitting. I recommend you do the same.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews