Then Winter

by Chloe Honum

Poetry. Women's Studies. Editors' Selection from the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Then Winter vividly traces the speaker's journey in a psychiatric treatment facility. With precision and honesty, Honum cuts through the climate of silence surrounding mental illness and treatment. These fiercely intimate poems draw the reader into the boundaried world of a psychiatric ward, where moments of darkness exist alongside moments of humor and deep connection, and render the natural world beyond the facility's windows with piercing mystery and beauty.

Genres: Poetry

32 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 20, 2019

Reviews

[Jenna]

My review of this chapbook was published by Poetry Northwest this month: http://www.poetrynw.org/two-sides-one...

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think what I like best about this collection is the arc or the movement from the onset of illness to help from the ward/clinic and finally, to independence. There are admirable lines in each poem, but I can't say the volume overall blew me away. Favorite poems are Note Home (seems like a perfect missive home from the ward; prose poem form works best here), Rest (love these lines, as others have noted: "Freshly cut flowers and wrapped in newspaper,/that's how I want to rest, my dreams/like white petals absorbing ink."), and Teaching Poetry at the Juvenile Detention Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Fave lines:

I will sing the song of the trees in the cold wind, the way they rush up like flames. [from Offerings]

At home, my dog sleeps beside me. She groans as I slide my hand beneath her head. I speak to her. I carry her warm, happy skull through the night. [from The Ward Above]

Coming toward me, a hooded woman carries a gladiola like a spine in bloom. [from We're Supposed to Get Snow Tonight]

When I finally fainted, it was as silky as I'd imagined, as if sleeping and waking were two sides of one pearl. [from Group Therapy]

By evening, he waits in a shimmering boat. [from The Master of Dreams]

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

So precise and elegantly honed, with such stark, unsentimental similes. Really, she has a sense of metaphor that is unlike anyone else. I think I could recognize one of her similes anywhere. Both of her books are perfect, but this one might just edge out The Tulip-Flame for me. Read them both, though.

Here are three favorites:

Group Therapy
http://waxwingmag.org/items/Issue8/16...

Offerings
https://linebreak.org/poems/offerings/#

Stay Beside Me
http://twopeach.com/chloehonum

Chloe and I went to graduate school together, and this poem is especially powerful to me as I've taught poetry in this very same room:

Teaching Poetry at the Juvenile Detention Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
http://www.diodepoetry.com/v9n1/conte...

Very highly recommended.

[Macy Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honum's beautiful, clinical poetry is a great read. I really loved the last three poems that leap outside of the psychiatric hospital setting that most of the chapbook is written in. Overall a solid read.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these delicate poems start grounded in an uncomfortable reality and then seem to distance themselves into metaphor, transforming into a different kind of darkness. I got the sense of a series of black and white snapshots painted in words. Nice collection.

[Josalyn Monahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was beautiful. I devoured it the first time through, and then immediately read it again. Honum grounds the reader with her repeated imagery and symbols, and she shows what a psychiatric ward is really like through characterization and dialogue. I would definite recommend reading this.

[Rahul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it while reading it, I'm pretty sure, but I thought a lot of the poems were a tad blase. I do remember enjoying the plot progressions, and the irony of ending the collection in a correctional center. "Hope is anything that travels in big leaps."

[Matthew Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very beautiful chapbook. I adore Chloe Honum's poems.

[Kelsey May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chloe Honum’s chapbook “Then Winter” was released from Bull City Press in 2017; I read it last fall and reread it this winter, cherishing the intimate observations and vulnerable recollections of a stay in a psychiatric hospital. These poems offer solace and insight, equipping the reader with both empathy and knowledge of a time in the speaker’s life that was formative and very difficult.

Even without having experienced as severe a crisis as the subject of the book, I turned to these poems and am still able to relate and gain comfort, healing, and solidarity from them, and for that, I’m grateful.

Full review at: https://hyypeonline.com/2019/03/06/th...

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Flowers freshly cut and wrapped in newspaper, / that's how I want to rest, my dreams / like white petals absorbing ink."

I really enjoyed this collection; many of the poems are set in a psychiatric ward, the narratives weaving inside and outside its walls. Review forthcoming.