The Cold and the Rust: Poems

by Emily Van Kley

Winner of the 2016 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry, a tender portrait of a queer girlhood on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In this lyrical and unflinching debut, a landscape of staggering beauty abuts industrial towns in the throes of economic decay. Emily Van Kley explores notions of home, estrangement, isolation, and longing against a backdrop of crystalline winters, Lake Superior’s mythic tempers, and forests as vast as they are close.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT

72 pages, Paperback

Published March 13, 2018

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

These are stark and self-assured poems. Van Kley writes in a way that forces you to slow down your reading and consider each line. Overall it was a very atmospheric collection with a strong sense of place, and I found myself savoring a lot of the poems with multiple reads. The poems with athletic and hunting themes were especially effective for me. The subjects of Van Kley's poems are tough but expressive. It's hard to pick out snippets to quote, because so many of the poems function as mini narratives, more effective as a whole than as individual lines. One of the standout poems, "Weight Training," capitalizes on all of Van Kley's poetic assets. The first section is by far the best, but I enjoyed the whole collection. I look forward to reading more from this poet in the future.

[Donald Quist · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several gorgeous poems in the collection, including “Upper Peninsula” and “My Dead Grandfather.”

[Joseph Haeger]

This is a fantastic collection.

[alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

made me want to go somewhere covered in snow just to hear how quiet it’d be

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ONLY reason I crossed paths with this book was because there was a library reading challenge prompt to read a book with Winter or Cold in the title, and I decided to scour the poetry section to find something to fit. But this read was meant to be. As I started reading this, I had this riotous feeling of recognition that I tried to explain in my head as being due to a rarity of poets writing from working class backgrounds. That's part of it, but not quite it. Small town working class gets closer — fart enough from major cities that a night of young adult entertainment revolves around trucks and drinking and the closest creek. I was surprised how close and familiar some of these felt.