Edith

by Meg Freitag

“No one is free” says Bob Dylan, “even the birds are chained to the sky.” Edith is a book about a bird, a beloved bird that dies an untimely death and is mourned accordingly. Edith is ethereal, part muse, part icon, part confidant, her name echoes through the poems in what Pound would call the “manner of the musical phrase”, the way the name Tarumba sounds through the work of the Mexican poet Jaime Sabines, or the name Naomi in Bill Knott’s first collection, repeats itself like a talisman.

She disappears only to reappear, spreading her wings over memory, loneliness, and self-imposed solitude, an ordinary life extraordinarily told. Freitag’s imagination flutters and swerves. A lyric and apocalyptic vision of love lost, these are poems of the murmuring, devouring self, written with the leaping exuberance of appetite, full of dark humor and underlying tenderness. The surreal sensibility that drives these poems is full of surprise and precision, the images original, piling on top of one another:

“The stars fell into the river and rusted.”

“…The moon drains its blood / into an ocean on the other side of the world”.

“…the old life with its milk of tiny diamonds.”

In a time when so much of our poetry seems ironic and detached, its language overwrought or restrained, its associations timid or excessively mentalized, it’s a true pleasure to encounter this fresh new voice, vibrant and full of the wild sap of life. And like Edith, chained to the sky.

— Dorianne Laux

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the good fortune to read these poems when they were still finding their way into manuscript form — and I fell in love with them there, as I fall in love with all of Meg's work — but reading them as a proper collection is all the more satisfying. How lucky is the world that Meg's poems are in it.

I mean:

"When I was eight, I put my last quarter
In a gumball machine at the video rental place
And no gumball came out. I can’t say I grieved
e quarter, exactly, but the distance I saw
Chasming between the beginning and the end
Of a desire." — "Promenade à Deux"

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book #2 of 2020

This book. Wow. I am not sure that I can put into words how utterly fantastic this collection of poems is.

It is, at its core, a collection of poems written to a dead bird (but of course about so much more in the end). I've never particularly understood people who keep birds as pets but Edith is just a gorgeous sort of grieving. It is meandering, conversational yet with great depth. It is tortured and hopeful.

I don't know what else to say. This book surprised me in a huge way and I cannot wait to read another Meg Freitag book. She is an amazing poet.

[Meg Tuite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Totally unique take on structure! LOVE EDITH! DEEP WATERS!
Some quotes:
"I felt time
close up around itself
And for a few resplendent yards
There was no such thing."
"If someone hurts your feelings, there is an impulse to thrash around
Inside your own body."
"...all the mirrors
Turn around so the walls have to stare at themselves."
"Something inside you lies down
And closes its eyes and so begins
The selective process
Of existence."
"You live entire lifetimes some days
From your bed."
"heart cleaved wide as a sky..."
"I keep writing poetry because I keep running into feelings
That don't have names."

Just keep on moving! It's brilliant and mesmerizing! Get a copy! LOVE!

[Brandon Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful collection of poems. Bright with life and grief and color. Meg Freitag has an ear for the music that carries us through our day jobs and our restless dreams and all that we can squeeze in between, and an eye for the weirdness that our memories hold on to dearly.

[P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad one of my Goodreads friends reviewed this; it's so very very excellent.

[Taisia Kitaiskaia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Meg Freitag's poetry! Her lines and stanzas have haunted me for years.

[Dion O'Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know a lot of my friends out there feel they should be buying and reading more poetry. This review is for you: Before you reach for Billy Collins, try this young, emerging voice.

Freitag's Edith is a book that both poetry lovers and prose readers will enjoy. For the poets among us, there is much to admire in her craft: her line breaks are masterful and her diction is clear, vivid, and agile. Furthermore, the cohesive and persistent themes in the text create momentum as one moves through the book. The conceit— addressing a dead parakeet named Edith about the speaker’s gloom subsequent to a break up— is fun, surprising, and compelling to all kinds of readers. Here is a sampling of her clever tone, wordplay, line breaks and topic shifts:

...I imagine it might hurt
You Edith, to know there is nothing you can do
To stop bad things from happening

To me. You are powerless in your little blue
Velvet cocoon. Your hooked
Beak your tiny gnarled toes. In his mother’s

Boyfriend’s above ground pool
I demonstrate my clumsy almost-
dogpaddle...

[Jo-z K · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of poems so delicate, and yet begging to be devoured. Freitag writes of love and grief, loneliness and the passing of time. Each poem rings incredibly true; each poem stands alone gloriously but also walks the tight rope of thread that connects them all with Edith, the lost bird. I wish so badly that I had written even a single line of this collection. Edith will no doubt be a book I return to again and again.

[BB Bux · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a favorite contemporary poet. These poems made me laugh and cry in turn. Freitag writes with self-awareness, openness and a willingness to turn over every tiny thing and find its meaning and beauty. There’s so much tenderness for the world in these poems, and so much wit. There’s grief, anger, lust, love, loneliness, regret and everything in between. I’ll be reading everything she writes in the future.

[Stef]

Edith explores the sentimental loss of a pet bird named Edith. The poet uses life experiences in their writing and evokes the ultimate grief of the loss of a loved pet. Edith was more than a bird. The poems as you on gone may be triggering as the works include a relationship. Overall, it was interesting to read the perspective of how the voice handled grief- almost every poem involves Edith.

[Shilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Edith, I'm done with things / That are bigger than me. / The moon can go fuck itself, / For instance."
🐦
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Edith is a collection of tender, grief-filled poems. These poems are addressed to Edith, the bird which the poet lost in unfortunate circumstances that involved a forgotten latch that needed hooked and a young pup. They are ripe with longing. Really lovely collection.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I can't stand the way men touch
Gently after knowing they've wounded you."

Fantastic work of poetry. I felt myself in her words of poetry. Relatable and eye opening to another view point of the world.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

The lines in this one! The visuals! Wow. An open letter, a collection of grief, of heartbreak, of surrealism and humor. Inhale a bundle of emotions in Freitag's debut book, a book I can't recommend enough.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't even mind the slight winsomeness when the lyric addressee is a parakeet. It helps ground narrative details in locales connected to erotic misadventures. Something pastorally randy in its scene is all that tranvalues what's kitsch in the project.

[Kevin O'Rourke · Rating 4 out of 5]

EDITH is very good & I reviewed it for Michigan Quarterly Review: http://www.michiganquarterlyreview.co...

[Mimi Lipson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't stop reading Edith. It's so full of love and pain and post-coital lulz and crazy ideas.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wouldn't have come across this if not for bookclub but loved this collection of poems!

[Amy Dupcak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vulnerable and endearing collection of poems, many of which speak directly to Edith, who is so much more than a dead pet bird. While reading, I felt like I was living inside Meg's house, heart, dreams, and mouth--stuck between her teeth with all the other things she wants to consume and keep forever. Her poems help me reflect on my own longings and losses, and they're delightfully playful despite the depths they explore and the deaths they mourn. These are poems I will come back to again and again.

[Elijah Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Were I to transcribe every line that I loved and savored from this book, I would end up just with another copy of “Edith.” Freitag writes emotions so big that they feel themselves like characters, glittering with uncanny, wrenching metaphors. Her line breaks explode with surprise and double meaning, evoking a feral sort of awe.

I can’t overstate how good this book is.

“The thing that’s most difficult
About truly loving
Someone is not the impulse
To devour, but the simultaneous impulse to preserve…
… how
Does one
Not starve to death
Like this? Carrying something
So gently
In their teeth.”