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Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry
Ornament (Volume 24)
In this debut collection, Anna Lena Phillips Bell explores the foothills of the Eastern U.S., and the old-time Appalachian tunes and Piedmont blues she was raised to love. With formal dexterity—in ballads and sonnets, Sapphics and amphibrachs—the poems in Ornament traverse the permeable boundary between the body and the natural world.
- GenresPoetry
84 pages, Paperback
Published February 3, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
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November 1, 2022One of the most striking things about this book is its utter beauty -- Bell's use of imagery, metaphor, alliteration, meter, rhyme, refrain, etc., is densely, enchantingly beautiful to the inner eye and outer ear in a way few other books, even few other poetry books, can touch. The things we all so often take for granted in our lives -- our "full, unkempt" living spaces, our bodies, our daily chores -- transform beneath Bell's kind, cheerful, attentive eye into a "brighter, clearer" version of themselves, a "road leading sunward." But what I love most about Ornament, even more than its effulgent gorgeousness and seductive sensuality, is how it inspires me, teaches me a different way of living is possible. These poems say yes, yes, it's possible to live in harmony with the earth, knowing and appreciating its flora and fauna, strengthening family bonds around nature-viewing excursions, maybe even gathering trifoliate oranges to make one's own marmalade, embracing the practice of the textile arts to minimize material waste. This doesn't have to be a pipe dream; it can just be.
There's a lot of good poets out there writing today, but I don't think there's anyone out there doing what Bell is doing. Her voice and her principles of writing are entirely distinctive.
A couple sample poems:
http://32poems.com/poem/anna-lena-phi...
http://www.versedaily.org/2017/qualif...
Like Matt W. Miller's terrific Club Icarus , this book won the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.
There's a lot of good poets out there writing today, but I don't think there's anyone out there doing what Bell is doing. Her voice and her principles of writing are entirely distinctive.
A couple sample poems:
http://32poems.com/poem/anna-lena-phi...
http://www.versedaily.org/2017/qualif...
Like Matt W. Miller's terrific Club Icarus , this book won the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.
January 21, 2019
Delightful poems that interact with one another, forming a complex design. I reviewed this collection for TUPELO QUARTERLY: http://www.tupeloquarterly.com/to-mak...
May 31, 2017
Excellent poems. Great, unusual use of meter. Deservedly a prize winner.
August 30, 2017
Beautiful poems about the natural world and the old time music--blues and ballads--of the Carolinas. I loved "Ornament," "To Do in the New Year" and "The Royal Typewriter Company Delivers by Parachute, 1927."A stunning debut collection.
April 6, 2018
My review can be found here
May 23, 2019
Love all the nature imagery
June 4, 2023
I loved the imagery that Bell creates in her poems the landscapes are ones I want to fall into.
March 24, 2017
Poems inspired by life in the Carolinas, bluegrass music, biology, botany and family. The poems keep a consistent tone and theme, although they come in many different formal structures.
July 13, 2022
I was assigned to read Ornament for my Creative Writing course, and my class actually got the distinct pleasure of getting to talk with Anna Lena Phillips Bell about the collection. I wanted to wait to write my review until after I had a chance to ask her some questions, and consequently, I feel quite comfortable in my 5 star rating.
Firstly, Ornament is full of poems you must read out loud. In the author's notes section at the end of the collection, there's a mentioning of how a lot of music inspired Ornament, and you can hear it in the poems themselves. In the rhythm and rhyme; the repetition and refrains. Apparently, we're currently in a poetic stage where free verse is kind of taking over, but Anna Lena seems to really love controlled meter and rhyme, and to me at least, it really makes the poems stand out in my mind. They feel more lyrical; a tight control over syllables and emphasis that actually creates a free-flowing sound. As for the actual contents of the poems... oh boy. I geeked out over this in class before Ann a Lena came, I geeked out about this to Anna Lena, and now I'm going to continue my geeking rampage on Goodreads. Brace yourselves.
There are a few poems throughout the collection that are written like a story. Specifically looking at my favorite, Fall Swim, there is dialogue, dialogue tags, internal thoughts, action, scenic descriptions, a plot, and a resolution. It's so unique, at least to me and my limited poetic exposure. It almost reads like if you were to delete the line breaks and condense the poem into a paragraph, it could be mistaken for a short story. A short story with perhaps more poetic language than what one might typically expect, but the idea is there. The closest thing I can think to compare it to is Helium by Rudy Francisco, but even that doesn't quite match up. It's a fully-fledged story, which for some reason, really excited me to read. When I asked Anna Lena about it and how she goes about writing such poems, she explained that there are just some stories that feel like they need to be told. Yet, in poetic form, there are certain pitfalls that can come with the format, so it almost started out as a writing exercise: write the story as a poem with no ending in mind and see where it takes you. And, personally, I love how these poems came out. These aren't the only types of poems in the collection though.
The topics of poems in Ornament range from the personal to the natural, usually with some blend of the two included. A lot of the topics are fresh ideas and extended metaphors I haven't encountered before, including strapless bras (the bane of my existence) and snail sex. Yep, snail sex. Love it.
So, while I have made it a point to grouse in every poetry collection review I've written that I am not a poet, I do not understand poetry (yet I keep reading it for some reason), I really liked this collection. I feel like even when I had no idea what was going on, the flow of the poem was enough to keep my blissfully ignorant mind engaged.
Quotes I particularly liked:
"loped along in twilight, / shadows dismantled by his boots: (Trillium).
"Time counting wishes is time counting losses" (Overture).
Firstly, Ornament is full of poems you must read out loud. In the author's notes section at the end of the collection, there's a mentioning of how a lot of music inspired Ornament, and you can hear it in the poems themselves. In the rhythm and rhyme; the repetition and refrains. Apparently, we're currently in a poetic stage where free verse is kind of taking over, but Anna Lena seems to really love controlled meter and rhyme, and to me at least, it really makes the poems stand out in my mind. They feel more lyrical; a tight control over syllables and emphasis that actually creates a free-flowing sound. As for the actual contents of the poems... oh boy. I geeked out over this in class before Ann a Lena came, I geeked out about this to Anna Lena, and now I'm going to continue my geeking rampage on Goodreads. Brace yourselves.
There are a few poems throughout the collection that are written like a story. Specifically looking at my favorite, Fall Swim, there is dialogue, dialogue tags, internal thoughts, action, scenic descriptions, a plot, and a resolution. It's so unique, at least to me and my limited poetic exposure. It almost reads like if you were to delete the line breaks and condense the poem into a paragraph, it could be mistaken for a short story. A short story with perhaps more poetic language than what one might typically expect, but the idea is there. The closest thing I can think to compare it to is Helium by Rudy Francisco, but even that doesn't quite match up. It's a fully-fledged story, which for some reason, really excited me to read. When I asked Anna Lena about it and how she goes about writing such poems, she explained that there are just some stories that feel like they need to be told. Yet, in poetic form, there are certain pitfalls that can come with the format, so it almost started out as a writing exercise: write the story as a poem with no ending in mind and see where it takes you. And, personally, I love how these poems came out. These aren't the only types of poems in the collection though.
The topics of poems in Ornament range from the personal to the natural, usually with some blend of the two included. A lot of the topics are fresh ideas and extended metaphors I haven't encountered before, including strapless bras (the bane of my existence) and snail sex. Yep, snail sex. Love it.
So, while I have made it a point to grouse in every poetry collection review I've written that I am not a poet, I do not understand poetry (yet I keep reading it for some reason), I really liked this collection. I feel like even when I had no idea what was going on, the flow of the poem was enough to keep my blissfully ignorant mind engaged.
Quotes I particularly liked:
"loped along in twilight, / shadows dismantled by his boots: (Trillium).
"Time counting wishes is time counting losses" (Overture).
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews