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Ceremonious
“CEREMONIOUS is a high wire act, an everything-thrown-at-us-including-the-kitchen-sink explosion of content and form, ideas and words coming at us at the speed of comets. What I love about this work is the way each poem becomes a theater of actions, some of them narratives of cause and effect, some of them records of consciousness at warp speed laid bare on the page—mosaics about self and place and class rendered cubistically. In an elegy entitled “Reside Here, in the Gold,” the speaker admits her art is performance: “I am posturing myself / in the isolate, / I can reside here, in the gold. // She’d come back from California.” Dearest Midwest, meet Joshua Tree, California.
Plummer’s poems explore life as a resident of the Midwest, and her poems are overflowing with cultural artifacts, a kind of ecstasy of excess. And yet there is an almost prehensile yearning to escape into wider realities. Still, though there is plenty to struggle against, CEREMONIOUS contains the utterances of a shameless Romantic. I’d say Plummer’s work here is anthropological, as it describes life in the hand-to-mouth communities of the United States, circa 2020. But it’s also work that glorifies the now, an ecstatic all-at-once celebration of full-on consciousness despite what is difficult, always beautiful.”
-David Dodd Lee, author of Downsides of Fish Culture, Orphan, Indiana, and The Coldest Winter on Earth.
Plummer’s poems explore life as a resident of the Midwest, and her poems are overflowing with cultural artifacts, a kind of ecstasy of excess. And yet there is an almost prehensile yearning to escape into wider realities. Still, though there is plenty to struggle against, CEREMONIOUS contains the utterances of a shameless Romantic. I’d say Plummer’s work here is anthropological, as it describes life in the hand-to-mouth communities of the United States, circa 2020. But it’s also work that glorifies the now, an ecstatic all-at-once celebration of full-on consciousness despite what is difficult, always beautiful.”
-David Dodd Lee, author of Downsides of Fish Culture, Orphan, Indiana, and The Coldest Winter on Earth.
Paperback
First published October 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 14, 2021
Ceremonious is surrealist documentation of Midwestern cultural inquiry. Each utterance is poetically full of the heaviness from those stuck in the regions sapped grasp. Plummer brazenly pay homage to the rust belt’s grotesque beauty, bringing a gentleness in the reflection of a tattered plain, pulling readers into the timelessness and timeliness through contemporary brands like Marathon, Toyota, Jolly Rancher, and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Ceremonious encourages us to go boldly into the sharp-toothed night, fully aware of each star and violent muck dropped into the cracks of the streets with tender rose-tinted hearts and eyes.
Ceremonious encourages us to go boldly into the sharp-toothed night, fully aware of each star and violent muck dropped into the cracks of the streets with tender rose-tinted hearts and eyes.
December 8, 2021
Brooke Nicole Plummer's use of linguistic imagery in CEREMONIOUS is impressive. Her poems not only paint vivid mental pictures, but she also hits you with a beautifully structured poem titled "DON'T CRY IF YOU WOULDN"T DIE FOR IT" from the start. About our life experiences being continual self-enhancement. Sliding down and climbing up the grand scheme of things. I wholeheartedly agree.
From there she goes on to write about patterns and connections in her hometown, the search for meaning, the unknown, and the moments in between that make us who we are. At its core, CEREMONIOUS is a love letter to the midwest. Full of eloquently written ballads for the working-class underdog, peppered with contemporary and pop culture.
My personal favorite poem is actually one of the shortest in the book; this little powder keg on page 72...
"GREEN MALAY"
The bones of the world
contribute to manuscript.
Those who stole our hearts
& stomped out
aren’t gonna
be flooding the streets
like us.
Lost in subtle metaphor,
I’m cleansing all my multi-spheres
or fist-fighting
my “nothing is meant for this.”
I cannot live another life
From there she goes on to write about patterns and connections in her hometown, the search for meaning, the unknown, and the moments in between that make us who we are. At its core, CEREMONIOUS is a love letter to the midwest. Full of eloquently written ballads for the working-class underdog, peppered with contemporary and pop culture.
My personal favorite poem is actually one of the shortest in the book; this little powder keg on page 72...
"GREEN MALAY"
The bones of the world
contribute to manuscript.
Those who stole our hearts
& stomped out
aren’t gonna
be flooding the streets
like us.
Lost in subtle metaphor,
I’m cleansing all my multi-spheres
or fist-fighting
my “nothing is meant for this.”
I cannot live another life
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews