Victims

by Marge Simon & Mary Turzillo

Victims is a relentlessly evocative, fearlessly imaginative examination of the emotional impact of torment. Sometimes we feel it from within the victim’s tormented bodies and minds -- at others we are forced to bear cruel witness, helpless to prevent the pain as it is inflicted mercilessly by a cruel villain. It is a masterful volume of empathy, written by two veteran poets who know the full spectrum of pain upon which a victim -- usually, though not always, innocently -- suffers the wrath of a rogue, be it historical, imaginary, or spiritual. It is also written by two powerfully visionary women, collaborating to show the pain that women, especially, have often endured across history and continue to suffer through in the present (and likely future). This book is feminist, yes, but it is not simply a vehicle for warranted female rage. It is an extraordinarily gritty book of poetry, focused on feeling and empathy and stripping horror of any seductive veneer, while using the speculative lens of “what might be” to not only warn us about what inevitably happens when power is wielded against the helpless unsparingly, but also what might make it even worse than we could ever imagine. This book bends sadism toward a different angle; it seeks to change the reader and it will. —Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Freakcidents.

Genres: Poetry, Horror

74 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2021

Reviews

[Alex | | findingmontauk1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

VICTIMS is a poetry collaboration from Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo. It is dark, raw, powerful, and full of rage. Each poem tells a story from a different perspective of one we think we know all too well. Each line helps to paint a picture for us to better understand the victims of so many scenarios. Simon and Turzillo force us to examine some horrific issues through a different lens. Sometimes it can be unsettling, but it is always necessary and important. These are sharp and witty poems that bite and haunt. My favorites include "Outline of a Murder," "Saint Theresa and the Fuck Me Shoes," "Chocolate for Twins," "The Defense Rests," "The Girl with the Pet Spider," and "Tamir: Samaria Keeps his Cast-off Teddy." All of the poems strike some kind of nerve, but the ones I listed will resonate with me for quite some time and I am changed for reading them.

[E.F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon and Turzillo have crafted a masterful collection of dark poetry that takes a broad view of victims. As a category, victims in the horror genre are sometimes used and disposed of - fodder for the gristmill- but not so in this work. Here we find poems that center real horrors to push past the casual, comfortable distance and instead breathe with pain of tragedies, exploitation, and heartbreak. Comprised of individual and co-created work, the poems are enlightening, enraging, and powerful.

Victims never lets the reader rest, juxtaposing an incredible range of topics: the pre-trial cultural assumptions of cases as varied as witch trials in "Inquisition" to the era of satanic panic with "For Damien Echols"; domestic murders as outcomes, embedded in histories of violation in "Outline of a Murder" and "Keeping Time"; state violence in "Tamir: Samaria Keeps his Cast-off Teddy," which imagines the life that Tamir Rice might have had and ends with a call to attention and action with the closing lines "If I kneel / please, excuse me. /Or please, please, join me"; and the brutal cruelty of violations at Auschwitz in "Chocolates for Twins." Victims do not only find human forms, as found in Turzillo's emotional rendering of animals in "Tatiana" and portrayed in the environmental devastation of chemically treated lawns in "The Last Weed."

Fierce, sharp, and chilling - Simon and Turzillo throughout build an analysis of the ways in which guilt can be constructed of bias, and victims are created through various acts of neglect. Conceptually bold, the collection still pulses with an immediacy. Instead of observing victimization as sideshow or sport, readers find forceful, close attention that unpacks the assumptions, misconceptions, and stereotypes that perpetuate paradigms of violence on many levels. Victims, thus conceived, become a cosmic work; a wide-ranging representation of the deep flaws and social structures that violate those who call earth home across time, across species, and across social differences.

[Timons Esaias · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the text of this in galleys, and the new front matter just the other day, when the physical copy came in the mail. I think I’ll just let my blurb stand in for a review:

This is one of the braver dark poetry collections I've seen in a while. Horror poets generally employ victims in their work, but the focus is generally on the Evil. Turning the camera the other way is unusual, unsettling, emotionally risky, and surprisingly effective. From their stark opening take on Pygmalion, to the ending poem about the wasted life of Stateira of Persia, this powerful collection teases apart an impressive number of the threads of victimhood. Some are the usual cases, but quite a few are surprises, or reversals, or cases with unexpected layers. There is nothing repetitive about this collection.


Oh, and I’ll add one thing. My favorite lines: "You are guilty. / Remember, you are always guilty."