Fort Red Border

by Kiki Petrosino

“Fort Red Border—the title itself an anagram for the name of this remarkable collection’s imaginary beloved—shows how language can be pleated, unfolded, and creased all over again into an endless origami of Eros. . . . By turns clowning, worshipful, heartbroken, and Faulknerian, these lyrics transport the reader to a familiar place made utterly strange.”—Srikanth Reddy

Kiki Petrosino earned graduate degrees from both the University of Chicago and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poem, “You Have Made a Career of Not Listening,” was featured in the anthology Best New Poets 2006. She lives in Iowa City.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

About the author

Kiki Petrosino is the author of White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020) and three other poetry books, all from Sarabande. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her memoir, Bright, is forthcoming from Sarabande in 2022. She directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia, where she is a Professor of Poetry. Petrosino is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the UNT Rilke Prize, & the Spalding Prize, among other honors.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this, another selection from the list of "best small press books of poems for summer" that went around a while back and ended up on HuffPo. On the one hand, I see that there's something salacious enough about writing a series of poems documenting your interracial relationship with Robert Redford that makes it hard for a press NOT to publish this collection, that makes it hard for reviewers to not stop and stare. But on the other hand, ew, Robert Redford could play himself in a zombie movie and not need makeup. And more significantly, maybe, I'm not sure that Petrosino says much here that I think is all that interesting-- Redford doesn't known about the kitchen in black hair? It feels like the lessons he learns are so unrevealing that it makes blackness seem like not much of a thing, and deprives the poems of shock or surprise or whatever frisson such an odd erotic pairing is meant to give.

There are other sections in this book, of course, and I think there are a decent number of okay poems in them, as there are in the Redford section. The poems are pretty prosey, without always telling interesting stories, and a lot of the poems felt kind of flat to me-- but then, I'm a particular kind of reader, and I go in for difficult syntax and etc, so who's to say. I'm sure lots of people think these poems are great, and more power to them. I've certainly read less rewarding books of poems.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

from Fort Red Border by Kiki Petrosino:

Love Poem

Say want. Say dear.
Say A robin sat humming in the deep
willow. Here is union: two blue eggs
to lights & two hums. In the willow
which hums, say hum. Say willow
with your thin throat humming. Now, where
is willow? Where robin on the light support?
Two quick hums, two quick lights—yes
a braided nest for two, & a branch
for dear robin. Then, humming willow.
Then egg & egg. Taking bright hold
of the branch. Willow of lungs
afire—

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems delight me! They are so sharp and tender and full of food and weird. I feel a little like when you go to the eye doctor and they let you try out the 20/10 vision, which is so crisp, and you love it, and don't want to go back to your (corrected to) 20/20 vision. Secret ninjas, afros, Redford, saints! I see, I see. Also, The Nico and I agree: Kiki knows how to end a poem. Indeed. "It takes days. / It takes days..."

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

a first book by a young poet who writes a fresh comic line, deceptively simple, partaking of dream and desire. She's a kick to read, especially her love poems--she's a valentine master . . . a great pleasure.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brimming with emotional intelligence, startling metaphors, and musical language, this book blew me away. I feel like I've known the poet all my life. The voice is completely original. She expresses so beautifully the pain, but also the creative capacity of loneliness and longing.

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wouldn't have expected to like a section of poems focused on an imagined romantic relationship with Robert Redford, but they're surprisingly touching in their tenderness and the subject's wistful distance from the dominant culture, a distance repeatedly symbolized by her natural afro. But the middle section was all about wordplay and complicated Escher-like poems, and the last section a too-casual pop culture referential melange, neither my cup of tea.

[T.J. Beitelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great first book, and that's not damning it with faint praise. Great first books don't have to be perfect. What a great first book has to do is this: it has to announce that this is somebody who's got something very important to say, somebody who is likely to have something important to say for a really long time. It also invites and rewards re-reading. (Just like any good book does).

Some great first books: Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions by Maurice Manning. Corinna A-maying the Apocalypse by Darcie Dennigan. Harmonium by Wallace Stevens. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Lucy Corin's Everyday Psychokillers. Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Etc.

Works for movies and albums, too.

The 400 Blows.
sex, lies, and videotape.
Hunger.
Surfer Rosa.
Document.

Etc.

Kiki Petrosino is obviously smarter than just about everybody you're ever going to encounter. But (lucky for us) she's got more than just that going for her. She knows how to be sad and how to savor things with joy and sensuality. Her poems are artifacts of that essential human range.

Count me in the group that loves her Valentines the best. Heart (appropriately enough). Vulnerability. Smarts. Real insight into what it means to want, to love, to lose, to be -- you know -- a verifiable (and very particular) human being on Planet Earth. I'm actually kind of sad that the Redford premise overshadows them (at least from your garden variety reviewer's perspective).

I'm less enamored of the Otolaryngology section in the middle -- not that there's not a great deal of virtuosic manipulation/expression of language (and even human emotion) there. I just sometimes felt a little bit like those were the Generation Next compulsories -- where she's showing she knows how to write poems that can get into Fence and Forklift, Ohio.

Don't get me wrong: I like those kinds of poems a lot of times, whether they're by Petrosino or other folks (and, PS, I'd love to get some of my poems in Fence and Forklift, Ohio); it's just that other poems in Fort Red Border connected with me on a much deeper level -- such that I very much look forward to Petrosino's next collections. Plural. And so should you.

[Kasandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Petrosino's 2nd book far more than this one. This one feels too much like an MFA program primer about how to write poems that seem to have almost no emotional impact, packed with intriguing imagery but with no takeaway. I only thoroughly enjoyed "Marc Transit", "White", "Afro", and "Or".... but I really liked parts of lots of the others. Petrosino is certainly original, and her other book I gave 5 stars to because I LOVED IT. But here, I'm just not sure what led to this being published. The interracial fantasy romance with Robert Redford is interesting, perhaps an extended comment on race relations in America, but come on... it feels like Petrosino is being deliberately obtuse and vague for most of the book. And from what I've seen, that's exactly what MFA poems and the best known writer's retreats and workshops have been all about for some time: the poem as puzzle, the poem as "who care if it makes sense to anyone but you or if anyone gets your pop culture references", the poem as "guess what I mean". Sigh. I hate that kind of poetry. What's wrong with being clearly understood? So glad I read her second one first.

[Edan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of poems is beautiful and funny and wild. I read most of them aloud, just to marvel at how they were constructed. The Valentine poems are hilarious, and then tender and heartbreaking. The first section, where the speaker carries an imagined relationship with Robert Redford, reads the most like fiction--each poem a little capsule of a story, with two distinct characters, and distinct settings and tone. The most challenging poems are in the third section. At first I was a little scared of them, but after I read them aloud a few times, I just enjoyed sitting inside of them, wondering at them. Such strange words and syntax! I felt like an astronaut visiting an antiquated planet, where they eat caviar and ride on riverboats. Something weird and lovely like that.

(Also? The author is fly!)

[Joe]

GGQSMABC/BHC input this into its collective mind. The output was mixed, though not necessarily along clear aesthetic lines. All found that the Redford poems were most engaging. Wished there were more, that they kept going, digging, mining. They made me feel like I was a long, tan forty year old lady sunbathing in the gentle erotic haze of a Romantic novel. Ah Redford! And maybe this lady has cancer. Some dumb, awful kind.

I will read Kiki's next book.

Also, we got the book 3.5 weeks after ordering it. Paul emailed the small presses to make sure they put the book in the mail. That's why we love you, Paul.

[John Schlotfelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two of the three sections in this collection were revelatory to me: reigniting my love of language, a well-turned phrase, of poetry, of writing, of thinking about my place in the world, and the power of words. The section about the narrator's relationship with Robert Redford and the section titled 'Valentine' were reread twice each, exposing and revealing new wonders. Fort Red Border is more than worth it for these 2/3.
I didn't dislike the middle third, but it left me at a distance. Maybe because I was so thoroughly won over by the first and third portions, some let down was natural.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

"These strands, wherein silence bides, close as horses in an afternoon of rain, these ropes which rise against containment & the blur of slang, for these do I come forth in torrents, do I come forth in tenderness & earth do I come forth in rage for these, for these." - 32

"It takes days.
It takes days." - 38

Valentine - 65, 67, 77

"Most people can't love you
unless you remind them of someone else." - 82

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give my experience with this book as a whole 4 stars, because it seems there were some poems here (particularly the second section) that required time I wasn't in the mood to give. But many of the Redford poems were amazing! A great mix of intellect and intuition. The Valentine section was also pretty great.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adding to say, after re-reading: My students loved this book. Really great for introducing contemporary poetry to new readers.
.................
Loved the first section of Redford poems, loved the last section of Valentines. Loved the diction, the humor, the delicacies, the loneliness present here.

[Shappi]

I'm so impressed with how Kiki writes series; it's a form that has alluded me, and I think she has a wonderful grasp of it. Also the humor and quirkiness are very welcome. As a whole, I think this is a very strong first book. (not starring poetry so much anymore, but I really enjoyed this one.)

[Maxine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kiki Petrosino is my girl. Sorry Charles Bernstein, but you just got eclipsed for the title of "Best Poet I Read In English 174C." Don't get too mad though, Bernie--I'm still going to write about you in my essay. I am just going to write about Kiki a little more.

[Heather Gibbons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how sensual and funny and smart and imaginative these poems are. I agree with Shappi-- a strong first collection.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there were 1 or 2 poems in this collection I enjoyed, this was really not my cup of tea...

[Alyssa Knickerbocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want Robert Redford to wash my hair, too. This book is killer.

[Mari · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third section, Valentine, is far and away the strongest and is why I'm keeping this book rather than giving it away.