LOVABILITY

by Emily Kendal Frey

The follow-up to her 2014 collection Sorrow Arrow (winner of the 2015 Oregon Book Award for Poetry), Emily Kendal Frey’s volume LOVABILITY is a dialogue of social and interpersonal dynamics, as well as an exploration of the feelings of freedom and longing they produce. “Scourged the river bottom for my lost self”— she writes in the collection’s final poem, “I Became Less Acceptable to Those in Power”— “Brought them up/ Touched their face/ The armor/ Split and leaking light.” A professional counselor and teacher, Frey’s work in LOVABILITY uses direct, image-driven poems to name the world we are a part of, to listen in.

Genres: Poetry

155 pages, Paperback

First published July 16, 2021

About the author

EMILY KENDAL FREY is the author of THE GRIEF PERFORMANCE as well as several chapbooks and chapbook collaborations, including Airport (Blue Hour 2009), Frances (Poor Claudia 2010), The New Planet (Mindmade Books 2010), and Baguette (Cash Machine 2013). A second collection, SORROW ARROW, was published by Octopus Books in 2014. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she hosts The New Privacy.

Reviews

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that forces you to slow down, soak in the dense lines one at a time, word by word, jabs and fragments, until the language of the book is your new language, breathing through you like some kind of personal hypnosis. Harrowing in its enchantment (or enchanting in its harrow?).

"Men withering on mom stalks / Women choking down dad dust / Small dogs coughing up divorce"

and "Bulbous mold blooms on spare room dreams"

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite poets.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The long-awaited follow-up to Sorrow Arrow doesn't disappoint. Frey is a master of balancing the vulnerable and the strong and that ability feels even more rigorous in her longer poems here (not to mention their long and bold titles). I also felt a strong emotional undertow in the poems regarding friendships and social constructs (gender, in particular, gets poked a few times with Frey's arrows). There's also a wonderful aura of playfulness and bawdiness that keeps you on your toes. A beautiful book that was worth the wait.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

From "This Tendency is Now Familiar"

When love ends someone has failed
It's real failure
A warrior in the grass
Why do we say "It didn't work out"
That seems athletic
We should say something else
Or be cinematically quiet (97)/

[Briar Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

my favorite poem from this book is “Jerry”. I love the way it shows the duality of your life & brain after a major grief. the poem switches between the perspective of regular life & your “grief brain” line by line, and it really shows what it’s like to try to live like normal after losing someone, and how that grief weaves itself into every moment.

[Joel Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly loving. Strange and fun and heartrending journey of fully realized psychology of experience coming from a trustworthy and compassionate place. Plus all the music and sensuality. Highly recommended poems. The opener, The Trees, is especially out of sight.

[Shilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I hate when people have little brown notebooks / And first edition Bukowski poems / That kind of hope / Is intolerable"

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

pow pow pow!!!

[Emily Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

My kind of poetry