Lambflesh

by Caroline Shea

Lambflesh is author Caroline Shea’s debut poetry collection. The chapbook investigates and complicates traditional narratives of girlhood and coming of age through lush, lyrical language. Poet and novelist Jenn Givhan (Girl With Death Mask, Trinity Sight) writes “Lambflesh crackles with stark and magic-stung survival songs (...). These poems are dark and potent and myth-heavy; they unbandage the stigma from mental health issues and sing ‘as refusal of erasure.’” Shea’s poems are fascinated by the pleasures and betrayals of the body, constantly reaching towards an equilibrium where both joy and pain can coexist, even if that balance is ‘always / a negotiation.’ Editor of Best American Poetry 2019, Major Jackson writes of the collection: “I confess: I am drawn to poems that break me into a tenderness I’d never known. Caroline Shea’s Lambflesh does it over and over.” This chapbook introduces a unique and ranging poetic voice that will captivate readers with its empathy and eye for detail.

Genres: Poetry

59 pages, Paperback

Published November 18, 2019

About the author

Caroline Shea is the author of the chapbook Lambflesh (Kelsay Books, 2019). She works as a freelance editor and is an assistant poetry editor at Washington Square Review. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Crab Fat Magazine, The Pinch, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal, among other publications. She recently received The Pinch Literary Award and was a finalist for the Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize. She's currently an MFA candidate in poetry at NYU.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exquisite, revelatory, revealing and celebratory. This collection is filled with evocative poems that transport you to moments of reflection, of joy, love and loss. I have read many of the poems multiple times and have found something new each time. This is a wonderful first entry to the canon of american poets. You will enjoy each and every one of these poems and should expect to linger over those that connect you to your own memories and experiences. Loved it.

[Kori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I would like it more if I fully understood it. Just getting into poetry so was a bit confused.

[Bay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike any poetry I’ve ever read. Ever line, every verse, nothing but raw experience filled with contagious insight. After every page it felt as though I needed a break to fully process what I had read. Rereading almost each piece multiple times to grasp its significance. The verses are profound and eliciting, feeding into the book’s anatomical theme. Gore filled and telling of the unvarnished human experience in all its glory. So few words, yet so content filled. I was so disheartened to see this is Shea’s only published work. This artist could change poetry as I, and many others, know it.