Liar

by Jessica Cuello

Poetry. "A highly original vision, voice, concept, style, language and image all working together to produce a world inside our world. Filled with fire and violence, mystery and magic, the loneliness of laundromats, rented houses, suicide, cornfields, hunger, and ultimately a naked raw survival, 'charred walls pulled back from the frame.'"--Dorianne Laux

"The genius of Jessica Cuello's LIAR is signaled by the (mis)spellings. Spelling, capitaliza-tion, and punctuation were not standardized until the eighteenth century, the era of printers and profit. These poems remind us that children, before they are indoctrinated into a world of correctness and pecuniary value, absorb the raw emotions swirling around them. Children hear truth even as they are told to spell it differently. The trauma of that disparity is conveyed in these poems. LIAR carries the reader into the world of a child for whom 'love is the sideswipe in the hall.'"--Natasha Sajeé

"In her gutting LIAR, Jessica Cuello, a master of the persona poem, flings off the mask to bare and bear remembered and imagined pasts. Writing often from the point of view of a child, Cuello's intricate and spellbinding poems take us on a journey of hunger and house burnings, lost fathers and distant mothers, laundromats and lust‚--girls longing to wear something other than shame, to claim and hold themselves in welcoming arms. 'Uncross,' she writes, 'Let your chest see.' Through poem after poem, she uncrosses, she welcomes them."--Philip Metres

Genres: Poetry

71 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2021

About the author

Jessica Cuello is the author of LIAR, selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize and Yours, Creature (JackLeg Press). Cuello is also the author of Pricking (Tiger Bark Press), Hunt (The Word Works), and three chapbooks: My Father’s Bargain, By Fire, and Curie. She has been a recipient of The Washington Prize, The CNY Book Award, The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, and a Saltonstall Writing Fellowship.

Reviews

[Natalie Marino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is original work. I have never read poetry quite like this. The author uses plain diction but also striking imagery and her use of singular punctuation and spelling is remarkable as she navigates memories of an often difficult, mystifying, and terrifying childhood.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning collection. Searing, compelling voice, and the imagery knocked my socks off. Will read again and again.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book. Inventive & heartbreaking. Such attention to voice & to what shit is really like.

[Steven Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jessica Cuello’s Liar is a riveting poetry collection that screams raw truth. In the poem “Liyer,” the speaker states, “Grandmother says / We don’t know where / her words are.” Oh, yes, we do! We do know where “her words are.” For example, in the poem “Laundromat with Single Mother,” the words are crammed into “trash bags” and on their way in “a cab to the laundromat.” In “Crusifde Is Over Nurse’s Desk,” the words are “mounted / above the door like a knight’s war sign.” In “At Five I burned Down My Grandmother’s Bathroom,” the words are feeding the flames that “spread, from my hand / to the toilet paper, to the / fringed edges of the curtains.” In “The Boy Is My Shepherd,” the words are controlled by the boy: “He made me a to-do list for Saturday, for after school, / a list of people I could talk to. He took my phone. / I was too ashamed to tell my brother.” Why? Because “they’d played / football together.” In “I’m the Slut,” the words are brushed into “the Renoir girl / tacked to the art room wall / in a haze of gold and cheek.” In “After,” the words are submerged in the suicide shower blood that “no one wanted to clean.” The truth in Liar will most likely not set us free. That is because the truth in Liar is there to saturate our senses with the reminder that we cannot and must not ignore human suffering and need, especially when suffering and need pertain to our children.

[Sunni · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection feels unlike any poetry collection I’ve read before. Cuello’s poems are masterful, with strong voices and images that usher the reader into a world of deep struggle. If art makes us more empathetic, these poems guide us toward an empathy for a particular population often invisible to us: neglected and abused children.

But the poems move beyond a narrative of trauma. They allow you to live for a while in the hungry and sharp and brilliant body of a child and to see the world of burned houses, lost fathers and suicidal mothers with a kind of reverence. These are poems of survival, but they’re also smart, incisive, revelatory. I can’t say how many times I simply wrote “wow” after a line or an entire poem.

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! If you haven't read this yet, I'm shaking my head at you!

[Ed Cuello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fresh language, an original voice, and poems that pull you in and embrace you...

[Laura T]

My god. Couldn’t put this down

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

In her gutting LIAR, Jessica Cuello, a master of the persona poem, flings off the mask to bare and bear remembered and imagined pasts. Writing often from the point of view of a child, Cuello's intricate and spellbinding poems take us on a journey of hunger and house burnings, lost fathers and distant mothers, laundromats and lust—girls longing to wear something other than shame, to claim and hold themselves in welcoming arms. 'Uncross,' she writes, 'Let your chest see.' Through poem after poem, she uncrosses, she welcomes them.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good collection of poems that fit together fairly tightly. This is a poet with a clear sense of what she wants to express. She used repetition well in the poems these are poems that would be instructive - good examples of a fairly cohesive style that a working poet might imitate and learn from. Sad, though. A sad book. For me, that fits my sense of what life often is, so it worked.

[Niki C · Rating 5 out of 5]

just gorgeous. utterly beautiful and vulnerable. in exploring the relationship between present and past, cuello manages not to define the image of the past, but leave it as murky as it feels. the emotion is right there on the page for you, but i never feel like I'm closer to understanding how I feel about my memories. such a fascinating read

[S꩜phie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Came into BP on a Friday eve and ended up reading James' book for his poetry class. U never know what will happen when u interrupt a Boys Close ™️

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant collection. I particularly loved the poems from the child's point of view, but some of the poems I guess I "didn't get." Some images I didn't understand, and I felt like they were kind of cryptic. For example, in the poem "The Boy Is My Shepherd," the line "He flattered / my skin—that didn't exist until him." What does that mean? How does skin not exist? And maybe there are some biblical references that I don't get, otherwise I don't understand phrases like "He is my rod and my shaft." Huh? But then I'm pulled in again by a good contrapuntal à la The Girl God. Overall, probably a 3.5 or 3.75. Someone who went through the rigors of an MFA might enjoy this collection more thoroughly.

[Iris (Yi Youn) Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful, deeply haunting, spare persona poems about violence in a small town, about fire ravaging a family, about adults failing their children, and about fraught mother-daughter relationships, all told through the eyes of a nameless young girl.