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Mothman Apologia
This volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets explores love, grief, the opioid epidemic, and coming of age
“ Mothman Apologia . . . hits a lilting, Larry Levis-esque register, both elegiac and witty.”—Elisa Gabbert, New York Times , “The Best Poetry of 2022”
“These poems name the hurt wrought upon the meek that makes the elegy, here, as much an exaltation of the living as a mournful dirge for the land.”—Major Jackson, Vanderbilt University
Robert Wood Lynn’s collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of understanding overlaps with regret and becomes a desire to know less. Comprising poems of place set across the Virginias, this collection includes an episodic elegy exploring the opioid crisis in the Shenandoah Valley as well as a separate series of persona poems reimagining the Mothman (West Virginia’s famed cryptid) reluctantly coming of age in that state’s mountains and struggling with the utility of warnings. These are narrative poems of love and grief, built from a storytelling tradition. Taken together they form an arc encompassing the experience of growing up, looking away, and looking back.
“ Mothman Apologia . . . hits a lilting, Larry Levis-esque register, both elegiac and witty.”—Elisa Gabbert, New York Times , “The Best Poetry of 2022”
“These poems name the hurt wrought upon the meek that makes the elegy, here, as much an exaltation of the living as a mournful dirge for the land.”—Major Jackson, Vanderbilt University
Robert Wood Lynn’s collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of understanding overlaps with regret and becomes a desire to know less. Comprising poems of place set across the Virginias, this collection includes an episodic elegy exploring the opioid crisis in the Shenandoah Valley as well as a separate series of persona poems reimagining the Mothman (West Virginia’s famed cryptid) reluctantly coming of age in that state’s mountains and struggling with the utility of warnings. These are narrative poems of love and grief, built from a storytelling tradition. Taken together they form an arc encompassing the experience of growing up, looking away, and looking back.
120 pages, Paperback
First published March 22, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
September 23, 2023
i saw mothman's ass
July 16, 2022
Probably one of the most cohesive modern poetry collections I've read, with a constant and consistent throughline of Appalachian decay, with recurring features all throughout to lend a larger narrative arc. We get ten elegies dedicated to "fire and oxycodone"; a second series of poems dedicated to everyone's favorite portentous cryptid, the mothman; and a string of non-themed poems in between that still feel very much in thematic keeping with the rest, even where they get more directly confessional. It's a clever construct, and the strength actually lies in the whole collection more so than any individual poems; there's a sense of accretion as the backstory builds up around us, a weight that isn't there when you read most of these as standalones.
In terms of style, everything sits between narrative and confessional and rarely tips too far into the abstract. It means the poems are easy to understand and grapple with, even as they slip in passing references to mythology or pop culture, and it's why the book will probably be popular. While it makes for great writing, it's not my favorite style of poetry--just about every poem has a clever concept, and there are at least 20 brilliant lines scattered throughout, but that cleverness occasionally wears thin. The layered metaphors piling neatly and culminating with something a little too clever, a pithy little observation designed to resonate above the din like a poet's version of a viral tweet, which can make the construct feel a bit obvious and the cleverness feel more like a stylistic tic. That's probably an odd criticism, but it ties into the intensely structured nature of the collection; due to the lack of disorienting abstraction (my preferred mode), I found myself thinking about the construction more than I like to when reading poetry. But that's on me, and it's only a blip in an otherwise stellar collection.
To his absolute credit, the poet captures the haunt and heartbreak of rural America as well as anyone, and there's no denying the pain or depth of feeling on display, the wistful sigh as we reflect on inescapable outcomes, systemic failures, and all the ghosts populating the countryside. Minor nits aside, I loved it as a book as much as anything I've read this year.
In terms of style, everything sits between narrative and confessional and rarely tips too far into the abstract. It means the poems are easy to understand and grapple with, even as they slip in passing references to mythology or pop culture, and it's why the book will probably be popular. While it makes for great writing, it's not my favorite style of poetry--just about every poem has a clever concept, and there are at least 20 brilliant lines scattered throughout, but that cleverness occasionally wears thin. The layered metaphors piling neatly and culminating with something a little too clever, a pithy little observation designed to resonate above the din like a poet's version of a viral tweet, which can make the construct feel a bit obvious and the cleverness feel more like a stylistic tic. That's probably an odd criticism, but it ties into the intensely structured nature of the collection; due to the lack of disorienting abstraction (my preferred mode), I found myself thinking about the construction more than I like to when reading poetry. But that's on me, and it's only a blip in an otherwise stellar collection.
To his absolute credit, the poet captures the haunt and heartbreak of rural America as well as anyone, and there's no denying the pain or depth of feeling on display, the wistful sigh as we reflect on inescapable outcomes, systemic failures, and all the ghosts populating the countryside. Minor nits aside, I loved it as a book as much as anything I've read this year.
July 11, 2022
I have listened to album after album of music since I was very young. In contrast I have not read much poetry, it never made as much sense to me. This book on the other hand felt much like an album, with all its poems neatly grouped together supporting it’s own world. I found myself lost in the recklessness of youth, the guilt of losing someone, the rage from that someone being taken away, and the rural attitude and life which so many Appalachians identify with. The context of one story feeding the next, arranged in a way that provides an arc which felt more logical than most poetry books. An excellent read through and through.
This book does a great job describing the feelings of those left in the wake of a life ravaged by the greed of pharmaceutical companies. This is a widespread issue and as I understand the proceeds this book generates go to help prevent this pain from affecting other families. If all the good things I have to say about this book aren’t enough to sway you, it’s worth at least worth a shot to support a good cause. How many other books do that?
This book does a great job describing the feelings of those left in the wake of a life ravaged by the greed of pharmaceutical companies. This is a widespread issue and as I understand the proceeds this book generates go to help prevent this pain from affecting other families. If all the good things I have to say about this book aren’t enough to sway you, it’s worth at least worth a shot to support a good cause. How many other books do that?
October 31, 2024
incredible. utterly beautiful. devastating. immediate favorite. all of the things i love about poetry in one book.
July 9, 2022
Swing-for-the-fences ambitious, without the bloat; working-class and operatic in equal measure (here's your real Hillbilly Elegy). Recalling Rilke in both its threaded-elegiac structure and its fixation on the winged vision as messenger, mouthpiece, and muse--angels for the former, mothman for the latter. Lynn's one of the rare contemporary US poets (I'm thinking also of Natalie Diaz) who has the storytelling chops to shoulder both the "prose" and "poem" elements of the prose-poem. A gem. Between this and Desiree Bailey's What Noise Against the Cane, Yale's on a roll.
August 8, 2023
This is the 7th poetry book I have read for #TheSealeyChallenge. And I LOVED IT!
Recurring topics/themes/images: Mothman, Appalachia, fire, the Oxygen epidemic, language, and crime. There is also a great deal of love in this book. The poems are all free verse or prose poems, with variations of each form.
A few of my favorites bits:
"a lost dog breaking into a run when it
hears its name for the first time in years."
--Psalm for the Haters in the Book
"bruises on your chest heal faster than the
ones on your pride."
--Prayer for the Shitstains
"Wet feathers look so much like
your hair coming fresh off a swim."
--Augury
"I ached to become a ghost and when I did
I even ghosted the long pauses."
--(The Mothman Drops Out)
Mothman is the speaker in many of the poems. The other major thread is that of a friend of the speaker, whose trauma involves Oxy and fire. Turkey vultures and wild turkeys make appearances, as do Yeats, Chekov, Larry Levis, Dante, Senator Robert Byrd, Muriel Rukeyser, and figures from mythology and history.
This book, like many of the others I have read for this, includes sections and notes; I appreciate both. In full-length collections, the sections are a nice pause, as well as a nudge that we are changing, even slightly, direction, time, attitude . . . something. And the notes in all of these books have been fascinating. In this one, the poet, Robert Wood Lynn, states that any proceeds from the sale of this book will go to organizations that fight opiate addiction in Virginia and West Virginia. (A great reason to buy this book, besides the great poetry!) Also, you will learn about Invisible Fire!
Some of my favorite poems:
of the Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone poems--The First, Second, and Seventh
of (The Mothman) poems--Pronounces Appalachia, Startles the Neighbors, and Reads From The
Book of the Dead
Voicemail from My Mother
The Best Shot in the House
About the Phones
I've lived in Appalachia and spent time in Mothman country, so I admit to being predisposed to liking this book. But it did win the Yale Younger Poets award, so I think I am objective enough to recommend it!
Recurring topics/themes/images: Mothman, Appalachia, fire, the Oxygen epidemic, language, and crime. There is also a great deal of love in this book. The poems are all free verse or prose poems, with variations of each form.
A few of my favorites bits:
"a lost dog breaking into a run when it
hears its name for the first time in years."
--Psalm for the Haters in the Book
"bruises on your chest heal faster than the
ones on your pride."
--Prayer for the Shitstains
"Wet feathers look so much like
your hair coming fresh off a swim."
--Augury
"I ached to become a ghost and when I did
I even ghosted the long pauses."
--(The Mothman Drops Out)
Mothman is the speaker in many of the poems. The other major thread is that of a friend of the speaker, whose trauma involves Oxy and fire. Turkey vultures and wild turkeys make appearances, as do Yeats, Chekov, Larry Levis, Dante, Senator Robert Byrd, Muriel Rukeyser, and figures from mythology and history.
This book, like many of the others I have read for this, includes sections and notes; I appreciate both. In full-length collections, the sections are a nice pause, as well as a nudge that we are changing, even slightly, direction, time, attitude . . . something. And the notes in all of these books have been fascinating. In this one, the poet, Robert Wood Lynn, states that any proceeds from the sale of this book will go to organizations that fight opiate addiction in Virginia and West Virginia. (A great reason to buy this book, besides the great poetry!) Also, you will learn about Invisible Fire!
Some of my favorite poems:
of the Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone poems--The First, Second, and Seventh
of (The Mothman) poems--Pronounces Appalachia, Startles the Neighbors, and Reads From The
Book of the Dead
Voicemail from My Mother
The Best Shot in the House
About the Phones
I've lived in Appalachia and spent time in Mothman country, so I admit to being predisposed to liking this book. But it did win the Yale Younger Poets award, so I think I am objective enough to recommend it!
January 15, 2025
“I watched the DVD with your sister once after the accident that scene / the stop drop and roll she threw up in her mouth in a sudden way as if a pipe / inside her burst oh her face as it dribbled down her chin i snapped / the disc like a communion cracker when i picture your face i see your / stippled freckles giving way to the fractal coastline of your burns / a topographic map some far off country we could never afford to visit / imagine you there making the local dishes burnt tinfoil shoplifted / shoelaces Narcan left like cookies for Santa roses in little glass tubes”
Lynn has such a beautiful way of making connections, making you laugh, and making you CRY.
Lynn has such a beautiful way of making connections, making you laugh, and making you CRY.
February 6, 2023
I really loved so much of this delicate collection of poems. Give me more plight-of-rural-America-as-explored-through-regional-cryptids poetry, please. I love the concreteness of this work, the storytelling and the getting lost in specific, tiny memories that don't leave you. It's accessible, especially w/r/t rural culture and the problems that plague it, without being condescending and high-minded without being abstract.
The only demerit is that silly poem on the proper pronunciation of Appalachia. Appalachians don't gaf.
The only demerit is that silly poem on the proper pronunciation of Appalachia. Appalachians don't gaf.
July 17, 2022
This book is a powerful read that allows the reader a chance to empathize, even if they haven't experienced anything near what the author wrote. Truly awe-inspiring, Robert Lynn is a master at capturing emotion in his words, and organization of said emotions into something almost logical. I have recommended this book to several friends and all have been thoroughly impressed by his work, even using his work to develop a predilection for the poetry genre
July 10, 2022
Gripping and honest, Robert Wood Lynn evokes the place and familiar mystery of the Mothman to show readers the daily and modern horrors that haunt the region of Appalachia - capitalism, exploitation, and the opioid epidemic that strip friends, family, and memories themselves as easily as mountaintop removal mining, leaving scars that are just as jagged and raw on the people - and lands - that are left behind.
A shocking debut, Lynn, just like the spirit of the mountaineers, is a force to be reckoned with.
A shocking debut, Lynn, just like the spirit of the mountaineers, is a force to be reckoned with.
August 3, 2023
Adventurous, pushes the envelope, and resembles talent that is hard to mimic, I look forward to returning to this book for years to come.
Lynn is a mastermind at work. Excited for future projects. This broke me out of my writing slump!
Lynn is a mastermind at work. Excited for future projects. This broke me out of my writing slump!
Read
August 3, 2023Like any cryptid, almost too good to be true. Stunning ode to Appalachia. Fiery critique of the Sacklers and extraction. Gorgeous elegy for a lost friend.
December 31, 2024
Rob!!!!!!!!!!!!! Special that my 52nd book of the year was by someone I am so reverent of and grateful for!!!! What a tremendous collection <3
June 13, 2025
goosebumps.
November 4, 2024
i had to google a lot of things while reading this and every google was like a gut punch and every poem was like being run over by a car. wonderful stuff
January 21, 2024
This was some of my favorite poetry I've read in a long time. Reads more like prose, but all lovely. Would read something by the author again.
August 10, 2023
Simply one of the best collections of poetry I have ever read.
July 6, 2022
Pretty dogshit poetry tbh. Recommend all potential readers give this one a skip.
February 23, 2023
The Season We Danced Alone While Pumping Gas
Virginia, October 2002
Recall the crappy metronome fear made out of the gulps
of the fuel pump, the sniper the news
conjured behind every parked car between here & Baltimore,
nobody expecting to outdance the bullet—just relying
on that old hiking joke: a slow
enough companion & you don’t have to outrun the bear.
Every head bob contagious, every shimmy from the customer
at the next pump, a challenge we were
compelled to accept. This is a dance off now because I refuse
to let someone else’s ducks & sways make my body the path
of least resistance, to let a bullet close
the circuit our parents had opened just sixteen years before.
The season we danced alone while pumping gas you stopped
shrugging off the crosshairs: you’d read
that when you put bugs in a jar & shake it, they fight each other
instead of the thing that shakes them. Let us fight the things
that shake us, you said. You said
if there is someone pointing a gun at us & let’s be clear
there is nobody—statistically nobody—pointing a gun at us
but if there is, are you going to tell them
where to point it, to let your body beg shoot them not me?
The season we danced alone while pumping gas, our homecoming
game was played away, its dance, perhaps
redundant, cancelled altogether. Ten people died before month-end.
That season, I was still ironing every task of driving into habit,
so even now I find myself sashaying
to the pump before I slide the nozzle in & pull the trigger. (39)
Virginia, October 2002
Recall the crappy metronome fear made out of the gulps
of the fuel pump, the sniper the news
conjured behind every parked car between here & Baltimore,
nobody expecting to outdance the bullet—just relying
on that old hiking joke: a slow
enough companion & you don’t have to outrun the bear.
Every head bob contagious, every shimmy from the customer
at the next pump, a challenge we were
compelled to accept. This is a dance off now because I refuse
to let someone else’s ducks & sways make my body the path
of least resistance, to let a bullet close
the circuit our parents had opened just sixteen years before.
The season we danced alone while pumping gas you stopped
shrugging off the crosshairs: you’d read
that when you put bugs in a jar & shake it, they fight each other
instead of the thing that shakes them. Let us fight the things
that shake us, you said. You said
if there is someone pointing a gun at us & let’s be clear
there is nobody—statistically nobody—pointing a gun at us
but if there is, are you going to tell them
where to point it, to let your body beg shoot them not me?
The season we danced alone while pumping gas, our homecoming
game was played away, its dance, perhaps
redundant, cancelled altogether. Ten people died before month-end.
That season, I was still ironing every task of driving into habit,
so even now I find myself sashaying
to the pump before I slide the nozzle in & pull the trigger. (39)
March 4, 2023
I found this one in the library by chance, and picked it up like, "oh mothman, I love mothman from the memes!" and I'm happy to say this collection was nothing like mothman from the memes.
It was an honest, stark, cohesive, and deeply troubled (troubling?) look at Appalachian culture and West Virginia and mining for a living and the carceral system and poverty and the opioid crisis and the evil motherfuckers who made their living getting rich off of ruining (primarily poor) people's lives with oxycodone prescriptions.
I'm a middle/upper middle class white bitch from upstate New York. the struggles in this book... are not unfamiliar to me (the opioid crisis hit hard here too) but I'm ultimately sheltered from a lot of them. I can see them through the glass at a museum of someone else's pain. Voyeuristic, I know. So there's a level of dis/connect for me, but I ultimately... well I don't want to say ENJOYED the poems but I appreciated them and felt sorrowful for them and sympathized, sometimes empathized, for the speaker, and felt rage at the upper upper classers who have played chess with people's lives like pawns for profitable slaughter.
The elegies to fire and oxycodone throughout were my favorite. Or well, the ones that evoked the most out of me. I learned a lot about the inherent greed in people, Crassus the ancient Roman who pioneering for-profit firefighting, the Sacklers, etc. but one of the overarching repeated themes is how much knowledge hurts, how much better it feels to know nothing. I could have lived my life without knowing about these evil greeds, but the curtains have been ripped open. I am painfully aware.
Five stars.
It was an honest, stark, cohesive, and deeply troubled (troubling?) look at Appalachian culture and West Virginia and mining for a living and the carceral system and poverty and the opioid crisis and the evil motherfuckers who made their living getting rich off of ruining (primarily poor) people's lives with oxycodone prescriptions.
I'm a middle/upper middle class white bitch from upstate New York. the struggles in this book... are not unfamiliar to me (the opioid crisis hit hard here too) but I'm ultimately sheltered from a lot of them. I can see them through the glass at a museum of someone else's pain. Voyeuristic, I know. So there's a level of dis/connect for me, but I ultimately... well I don't want to say ENJOYED the poems but I appreciated them and felt sorrowful for them and sympathized, sometimes empathized, for the speaker, and felt rage at the upper upper classers who have played chess with people's lives like pawns for profitable slaughter.
The elegies to fire and oxycodone throughout were my favorite. Or well, the ones that evoked the most out of me. I learned a lot about the inherent greed in people, Crassus the ancient Roman who pioneering for-profit firefighting, the Sacklers, etc. but one of the overarching repeated themes is how much knowledge hurts, how much better it feels to know nothing. I could have lived my life without knowing about these evil greeds, but the curtains have been ripped open. I am painfully aware.
Five stars.
April 19, 2023
“I lost the difference between balm and blame pressed complicit into complacent” (93)
“Still, it’s you I miss
Never those days before I knew grace
was a fire. An apology. Another thing
I could give away without having less.” (87)
“turns out you can run around burning nobody notices wave your arms roll around still no one believes you’re on fire” (77)
This collection is an elegy.
An ode, a memorial, a canary in a coal mine. A dirge. An accusation. An apology.
This might be the saddest story you’ve ever heard.
This is such a beautiful and moving, profoundly mournful collection of poetry that documents the persisting personal and communal tragedies of the opioid epidemic, still ravaging Appalachia, still near and dear for too many.
There is so much grief here — for everything taken, for everything that can’t be taken back, and for everything that can never be now.
This collection wounds me.
“Turns out time moves the way
blood does” (59)
Too fast and too slow. I think it’s so easy to think distance from a problem, from a cut, means you can’t experience pain.
This collection stands in opposition to that.
I can’t imagine anything more painful than the lives, the families, the futures stolen by the opioid epidemic and the unmitigated corporate greed of the Sackler family.
There are genuinely too many and not enough words to fully capture how important this collection is.
I appreciate the attention and unwavering documentation that Robert Lynn Wood brings to the issue and the systemic problems that allowed the epidemic to persist. I hope healing is possible.
I highly recommend this collection to everyone~
“Still, it’s you I miss
Never those days before I knew grace
was a fire. An apology. Another thing
I could give away without having less.” (87)
“turns out you can run around burning nobody notices wave your arms roll around still no one believes you’re on fire” (77)
This collection is an elegy.
An ode, a memorial, a canary in a coal mine. A dirge. An accusation. An apology.
This might be the saddest story you’ve ever heard.
This is such a beautiful and moving, profoundly mournful collection of poetry that documents the persisting personal and communal tragedies of the opioid epidemic, still ravaging Appalachia, still near and dear for too many.
There is so much grief here — for everything taken, for everything that can’t be taken back, and for everything that can never be now.
This collection wounds me.
“Turns out time moves the way
blood does” (59)
Too fast and too slow. I think it’s so easy to think distance from a problem, from a cut, means you can’t experience pain.
This collection stands in opposition to that.
I can’t imagine anything more painful than the lives, the families, the futures stolen by the opioid epidemic and the unmitigated corporate greed of the Sackler family.
There are genuinely too many and not enough words to fully capture how important this collection is.
I appreciate the attention and unwavering documentation that Robert Lynn Wood brings to the issue and the systemic problems that allowed the epidemic to persist. I hope healing is possible.
I highly recommend this collection to everyone~
April 8, 2025
An honest, raw, and vulnerable portrayal of grief, growing up in America and rural America, navigating the world knowing that you are an outsider and residing somewhere that is against your existence and doesn’t even always believe in it, the beauty/terror of fire, and so much more. I am going to leave my favorite of the poems here because it says it best:
“(The Mothman at the Psychiatrist’s Office in the City)”
It is a good idea not to be traumatized by fire / because if you’re looking for it you’ll find it / everywhere even the engine of your car even / beneath the stovetop sleeping quietly even / the shirt pocket of your friend who also keeps / it on the tip of his tongue and in a candle / on the corner of the bar it is a good idea not / to be traumatized by fire because if you are / alone with it you become alone with its / thoughts and hoo boy let me tell you fire / thinks some real awful awful awful / it is a good idea not to be traumatized by fire / because there are whole parts of West Virginia / named after explosives which do where they saw the first of us moth people / and yes it is a good idea not to be traumatized / by fire because if you fixate on it you can’t / rule out the possibility of summoning it with / the pale force of your fear it is a good idea / not to be traumatized by fire because it is a / good idea not to be traumatized by fire because it is / fire not an idea to be traumatized by but fire / actual fire I’m telling or trying to tell you / I’m not afraid of the idea but the thing itself.”
“(The Mothman at the Psychiatrist’s Office in the City)”
It is a good idea not to be traumatized by fire / because if you’re looking for it you’ll find it / everywhere even the engine of your car even / beneath the stovetop sleeping quietly even / the shirt pocket of your friend who also keeps / it on the tip of his tongue and in a candle / on the corner of the bar it is a good idea not / to be traumatized by fire because if you are / alone with it you become alone with its / thoughts and hoo boy let me tell you fire / thinks some real awful awful awful / it is a good idea not to be traumatized by fire / because there are whole parts of West Virginia / named after explosives which do where they saw the first of us moth people / and yes it is a good idea not to be traumatized / by fire because if you fixate on it you can’t / rule out the possibility of summoning it with / the pale force of your fear it is a good idea / not to be traumatized by fire because it is a / good idea not to be traumatized by fire because it is / fire not an idea to be traumatized by but fire / actual fire I’m telling or trying to tell you / I’m not afraid of the idea but the thing itself.”
September 26, 2025
One of the best poetry books of our time. The elegies were my favorite part of Mothman, as it truly rang the exact mantra I felt Lynn was getting at. This book has such a creative lens on the connections and dangers of Big Pharma, and it is so well done. I have an interesting feeling about painkillers since I had been on a few post-surgery, and I felt that it made me look at Mothman a little more differently than I would have if I had never taken a painkiller as strong as oxycodone.
This book really reminded me of a quote that I love about grief, regarding where someone puts the love they have for someone once they die. I think I love this and the quote because I am fascinated by the idea of quantifying love without putting it under a numerical umbrella.
There's a lot of diction about "holding" specific feelings, and I love that because we really do as humans hold so many things that aren't physical. We are hollow beings filled with emotions that take up certain organs, and we hold tensions that clog up our arteries and muscles until we explode.
This book really reminded me of a quote that I love about grief, regarding where someone puts the love they have for someone once they die. I think I love this and the quote because I am fascinated by the idea of quantifying love without putting it under a numerical umbrella.
There's a lot of diction about "holding" specific feelings, and I love that because we really do as humans hold so many things that aren't physical. We are hollow beings filled with emotions that take up certain organs, and we hold tensions that clog up our arteries and muscles until we explode.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2023
(the mothman gets high)
yes. there is a point at which any person gets tired
of knowledge. you could call this a threshold,
or you could call this the point at which a person
gets tired of knowledge. i'll tell you this:
i've never felt further from another than when
standing beside them trying to point out a star.
.....
(the mothman gets clean)
yes. or when a person gets tired of trying
you could point to this point, you could call this
a knowledge. standing beside them, you will call
this a tell. i have never tired of knowledge which
gets at the point: out there is a threshold at which
i felt further from another person than any star.
_______
bookends of something remarkable-- all the stars and then some for what's between.
yes. there is a point at which any person gets tired
of knowledge. you could call this a threshold,
or you could call this the point at which a person
gets tired of knowledge. i'll tell you this:
i've never felt further from another than when
standing beside them trying to point out a star.
.....
(the mothman gets clean)
yes. or when a person gets tired of trying
you could point to this point, you could call this
a knowledge. standing beside them, you will call
this a tell. i have never tired of knowledge which
gets at the point: out there is a threshold at which
i felt further from another person than any star.
_______
bookends of something remarkable-- all the stars and then some for what's between.
December 26, 2024
A heartbreakingly beautiful collection of poems about Appalachia, opioid addiction/epidemic, fire, survival, and Mothman (persona poems).
from (The Mothman Gets High): "I'll tell you this: / I've never felt further from another than when / standing beside them trying to point out a star."
from Voicemail from My Mother: "I didn't see it fly out, / so it's hung in my mind ever since. An unclosed parenthesis. // I've braced myself, the way the ear hears a squeal of brakes / and begs for a thud."
from Third of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone: "still I count it as a win forgive me I'm old enough to know the harm patriotism conceals seen the photos have they used to pledge the flag arms straight out a way we never will again"
from (The Mothman Gets High): "I'll tell you this: / I've never felt further from another than when / standing beside them trying to point out a star."
from Voicemail from My Mother: "I didn't see it fly out, / so it's hung in my mind ever since. An unclosed parenthesis. // I've braced myself, the way the ear hears a squeal of brakes / and begs for a thud."
from Third of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone: "still I count it as a win forgive me I'm old enough to know the harm patriotism conceals seen the photos have they used to pledge the flag arms straight out a way we never will again"
February 6, 2025
The poems in this book were cohesive & wonderfully unpretentious. While I didn't love every poem or the style of every poem, overall, this is a strong collection. The Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone were my favorite of the poems but I also loved the "Mothman" poems (for a few reasons -- (a) I'm a cryptid nerd who's way too into Mothman for someone my age & (b) What an interesting technique to use a harbinger cryptid to tell serious stories about struggle & despair). About the Phones was literally breathtaking & unlike almost every poem I've ever read, I don't know that I'll ever forget this one. (As someone from WV who grew up hearing "watch for deer," that poem did not go in the direction I was expecting, wow.)
July 21, 2022
There's a soft, melancholy grace to this collection. The poems self-deprecate and burrow into themselves, into the very land and people of their origin. But they also disarm the reader in their sincerity, their vulnerability. Every idea here is presented with care, with a willingness to be brutal in its honesty. Fire and land, Fire and disease, Fire and crisis, Fire and death; the land and people Lynn depicts are all ablaze, and yet he refuses to show you the ash and the char, the aftermath. He wants you to understand the process, the "how we got here", and then to help you see the beauty that was, and that which remains. The Mothman astounds.
August 28, 2024
4.5⭐
I freaking love poetry with story!
Wow, this was a little bit of a random book for me, but I'm so glad I read this. Robert Lynn has such a spectacular, accessible way of addressing his reader. I could feel as though he were communicating directly to me. Most importantly: I appreciate poets who weave together a story throughout their works. Yes, the individual poems are beautiful on their own; but when they contribute to an overall narrative, it just takes the whole experience to another level. Discussing themes of loss, pain, change, life and death, and so much more, these are both impactful and beautiful to behold.
I freaking love poetry with story!
Wow, this was a little bit of a random book for me, but I'm so glad I read this. Robert Lynn has such a spectacular, accessible way of addressing his reader. I could feel as though he were communicating directly to me. Most importantly: I appreciate poets who weave together a story throughout their works. Yes, the individual poems are beautiful on their own; but when they contribute to an overall narrative, it just takes the whole experience to another level. Discussing themes of loss, pain, change, life and death, and so much more, these are both impactful and beautiful to behold.
November 3, 2024
I picked my lip while reading this all the way through on the subway.
“Everything this year gave me it took back quicker.”
“If they were you, I’d know that what we call the bad year has finally let go.”
My friend Henry sent me Psalm 31 last night among some others, and I think about being consumed by anguish. And the invisible fires that are felt if not seen. Robert Lynn Wood translates this tender and screaming. Felt most palpably in what was once so special losing its glimmer. Down to the bodega.
“Everything this year gave me it took back quicker.”
“If they were you, I’d know that what we call the bad year has finally let go.”
My friend Henry sent me Psalm 31 last night among some others, and I think about being consumed by anguish. And the invisible fires that are felt if not seen. Robert Lynn Wood translates this tender and screaming. Felt most palpably in what was once so special losing its glimmer. Down to the bodega.
April 25, 2023
After being rather disappointed with Ocean Vuong's Time Is a Mother, I practically burned through Mothman Apologia (pun intended). An incredibly cohesive and powerful collection of poems -- and a debut collection, at that! I don't think all of the poems hit as hard as the others, but each one had a moment or a line or a phrase that I really enjoyed. The "Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone" are the real highlights.
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