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Brazen Creature
Brazen Creature spans a young woman's awakening. The poems' concerns are violence against women and girls that has become rooted in the land, and verdant female desire and self-assertion in the face of entrenched oppression.
In the poems' Midwestern towns and farmlands, patriarchy is a ghost that haunts the cottonwoods, soybean fields, and creek beds. The speaker is in limbo between fear and yearning, vulnerability and transgression, drought and flood, saving a life and needing to be saved.
In the poems' Midwestern towns and farmlands, patriarchy is a ghost that haunts the cottonwoods, soybean fields, and creek beds. The speaker is in limbo between fear and yearning, vulnerability and transgression, drought and flood, saving a life and needing to be saved.
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 9, 2022
First of all, awesome cover.
Second of all, awesome collection and perfect title. Every poem was fantastic, and it looks like just about all of them were published elsewhere first, but they work together beautifully. Love the darkness here, the anger, the strength.
Some of my very favorites were "Hallucinate the House, Hallucinate the Woods," "He Vows to Follow Me Even After He Leaves Me," "The Waiting Girl Sobers Up in the Same Room as Before," "Finding out the Lie One Year Later," "Questions for When We Meet Again," "If I Start Talking About It Now I Won't Stop Hollering," and "Incident in Northwest Missouri."
Many of these happen to be at the start of the collection but there was no feeling that the quality of the poetry declined as I worked my way through.
From "If I Start Talking..."
A man once told me sweetness
was the highest quality a woman
could own then put my name
down as Trouble in his phone.
And here I've gone
and said too much already,....
This is how you keep
a story from being told--
mothers teach daughters
what knowledge they write
in bloodline and what they must
trace into silt or wet snow,
each letter erasing itself as soon
as it's exposed. I have learned
that sweetness is love
thrown back in my face.
I have spread a map across
my knees and dreamt of all
the places I could flee--....
...and then I saw
a picture of myself as if
from afar listening again
to your endless white boy
search for God....
God who has been there
for you all along, who was
made to look like you
who never wanted me....
Second of all, awesome collection and perfect title. Every poem was fantastic, and it looks like just about all of them were published elsewhere first, but they work together beautifully. Love the darkness here, the anger, the strength.
Some of my very favorites were "Hallucinate the House, Hallucinate the Woods," "He Vows to Follow Me Even After He Leaves Me," "The Waiting Girl Sobers Up in the Same Room as Before," "Finding out the Lie One Year Later," "Questions for When We Meet Again," "If I Start Talking About It Now I Won't Stop Hollering," and "Incident in Northwest Missouri."
Many of these happen to be at the start of the collection but there was no feeling that the quality of the poetry declined as I worked my way through.
From "If I Start Talking..."
A man once told me sweetness
was the highest quality a woman
could own then put my name
down as Trouble in his phone.
And here I've gone
and said too much already,....
This is how you keep
a story from being told--
mothers teach daughters
what knowledge they write
in bloodline and what they must
trace into silt or wet snow,
each letter erasing itself as soon
as it's exposed. I have learned
that sweetness is love
thrown back in my face.
I have spread a map across
my knees and dreamt of all
the places I could flee--....
...and then I saw
a picture of myself as if
from afar listening again
to your endless white boy
search for God....
God who has been there
for you all along, who was
made to look like you
who never wanted me....
May 16, 2018
What a wonderful, fierce collection. Barngrover is an expert at pairing lyricism with narrative, vivid imagery with grit. The poems dazzle as much as dismay as they explore the wreckage skirting every love story. Read this lovely review: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...
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November 9, 2018
Lyricism, imagery, poetry—a collection that slays.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews