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Night Vision
In Claire Wahmanholm’s Night Vision, we are made to witness narrative’s inevitable unravelling. By placing hybrid prose in conversation with skillful erasures, Wahmanholm creates a subtle and striking commentary on the nature of language and story. She reminds us of the infinite ways that voice resists containment by history, convention, and our expectations as readers.
- GenresPoetry
52 pages, Paperback
First published December 11, 2017
30 people want to read
About the author
Claire Wahmanholm
5 books49 followersClaire Wahmanholm received her BA from UW-Madison, her MFA from the Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University, and her PhD from the University of Utah. Her chapbook, Night Vision, won the 2017 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook contest. Her debut full-length collection, Wilder (Milkweed Editions), won the 2018 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, the Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2019 Minnesota Book Award. Her second collection, Redmouth, was published with Tinderbox Editions in 2019. Her third collection, Meltwater, was published through Milkweed Editions in 2023. A 2020 McKnight Writing Fellow, her poems have most recently appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Descant, Good River Review, Image, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, Grist, RHINO, and The Los Angeles Review. She lives and teaches in the Twin Cities.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 30, 2018
A truly gorgeous book by the winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry. I highly recommend it!
January 7, 2026
I’m obsessed with her work!! Each volume inspires my own, and I’m blown away with her poignant use of erasure.
Claire be my mentor!! Xoxo
Claire be my mentor!! Xoxo
February 12, 2018
Thank you to New Michigan Press for gifting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Wahmanholm befittingly starts this collection of poems with “Beginning”. I enjoyed the dark undertones of this poem; the feeling of dread and anxiety for a future unknown. Throughout this collection, the author explores different styles of writing, yet there is a clear silver lining that connects each poem to the whole. I enjoyed Wahmanholm’s erasures poems, especially in contrast to her more, dense prose poems. These erasure poems give the reader a break in between the heavier work – although these poems were just as strong.
Some of Wahmanholm’s line are a little bit off, but in the best way possible. She uses unique words, that feel out of place, but exercise the readers mind to think outside of the box, into a new world that the author has created.
The content within Night Vision reflects an end of the world idea, as well as the concept of rediscovering the world. While it may not seem relatable to all readers, there are extreme human elements that will draw any reader in, even if they have never lived through an apocalypse, which I’m assuming you haven’t.
This is one of those books where I underlined a lot, but the lines wouldn’t make sense outside the poems, so you’re going to have to read it yourself to truly understand!
One of my other favorite poems was the first “Relaxation Tape” (there are multiple poems in this collection with this title). I loved the repetition of the telling line, “we felt very comfortable and at ease.” It is a very straight forward poem, and I appreciated it.
I especially really enjoyed the weird phenomena of “Fuse”, “Reap”, and “The Last Animals”. I cannot wait for Wahmanholm’s debut full-length collection, expected to be released in early 2019.
Wahmanholm befittingly starts this collection of poems with “Beginning”. I enjoyed the dark undertones of this poem; the feeling of dread and anxiety for a future unknown. Throughout this collection, the author explores different styles of writing, yet there is a clear silver lining that connects each poem to the whole. I enjoyed Wahmanholm’s erasures poems, especially in contrast to her more, dense prose poems. These erasure poems give the reader a break in between the heavier work – although these poems were just as strong.
Some of Wahmanholm’s line are a little bit off, but in the best way possible. She uses unique words, that feel out of place, but exercise the readers mind to think outside of the box, into a new world that the author has created.
The content within Night Vision reflects an end of the world idea, as well as the concept of rediscovering the world. While it may not seem relatable to all readers, there are extreme human elements that will draw any reader in, even if they have never lived through an apocalypse, which I’m assuming you haven’t.
This is one of those books where I underlined a lot, but the lines wouldn’t make sense outside the poems, so you’re going to have to read it yourself to truly understand!
One of my other favorite poems was the first “Relaxation Tape” (there are multiple poems in this collection with this title). I loved the repetition of the telling line, “we felt very comfortable and at ease.” It is a very straight forward poem, and I appreciated it.
I especially really enjoyed the weird phenomena of “Fuse”, “Reap”, and “The Last Animals”. I cannot wait for Wahmanholm’s debut full-length collection, expected to be released in early 2019.
February 6, 2018
I read these poems aloud to my son. Not because they're children's poems, but because Claire Wahmanholm is a very deliberate writer, and there is a pleasure in hearing her work read aloud; the rhythms and consonances one might have skimmed over while reading silently come alive.
This is a purple book--not in the sense of being overwritten, but in color--its characters dwell in a perpetual twilight, victims or survivors of an apocalypse they cannot name. They stumble onward, seeking if not a solution for their situation then at least an explanation. But, in absurd fashion, the cataclysm is too big to be understood. They see only pieces of what has transpired. And so the wandering continues.
Some poems are prose-like, tiny windows into horror. Others are fractured texts called erasures (created by the removal of words from a previously written text, in this case Sagan's Cosmos); these exemplify the characters' stuttering path. In some pieces, we seem to visit other apocalypses (apocalypsi?) or revisit the same from other viewpoints--mountains and comets--or are these metaphoric, and the narrators really the same? Are all apocalypses really one event, replayed over and over again? Toward the end of the book, though we feel we have learned about the narrator after struggling with her though so many pages, we know even less than we did at the outset. Some poems suggest a setting far in the future, while others evoke cave paintings and ice ages.
As a whole, Night Vision is not a book with easy answers to its mysteries. These poems are less giddy and exuberant than some of Wahmanholm's earlier work that I enjoyed, and much more secretive. But they are riddles whose depths are worth plumbing.
This is a purple book--not in the sense of being overwritten, but in color--its characters dwell in a perpetual twilight, victims or survivors of an apocalypse they cannot name. They stumble onward, seeking if not a solution for their situation then at least an explanation. But, in absurd fashion, the cataclysm is too big to be understood. They see only pieces of what has transpired. And so the wandering continues.
Some poems are prose-like, tiny windows into horror. Others are fractured texts called erasures (created by the removal of words from a previously written text, in this case Sagan's Cosmos); these exemplify the characters' stuttering path. In some pieces, we seem to visit other apocalypses (apocalypsi?) or revisit the same from other viewpoints--mountains and comets--or are these metaphoric, and the narrators really the same? Are all apocalypses really one event, replayed over and over again? Toward the end of the book, though we feel we have learned about the narrator after struggling with her though so many pages, we know even less than we did at the outset. Some poems suggest a setting far in the future, while others evoke cave paintings and ice ages.
As a whole, Night Vision is not a book with easy answers to its mysteries. These poems are less giddy and exuberant than some of Wahmanholm's earlier work that I enjoyed, and much more secretive. But they are riddles whose depths are worth plumbing.
August 5, 2018
Beautifully written. This book is definitely too smart for me, but I enjoyed every word. As someone who does not plan to be around post-apocalypse, this was as close as I'll get. My fave [The World is Very Distant] fits nicely with my generally negative/realist outlook.
June 4, 2019
Many of these poems are included in Wilder as well. This is a slim chapbook and a nice little collection of cautionary dystopic verse.
December 1, 2024
Cohesive dense visionary apocalyptic woodland prose poems. A fine introduction into the work of Claire Wahmanholm.
December 16, 2018
My review is up on Tarpaulin Sky: https://tarpaulinsky.com/2018/12/clai...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews