The Lantern Room

by Chloe Honum

The Lantern Room explores extreme psychic states alongside questions of what tethers us to the world, the seasons, and each other. With precision and compassion, these poems cut through the climate of silence surrounding mental illness and treatment. This collection is also concerned with the vigilance it takes for a woman to see herself and the world through her own gaze. Honum writes of sorrow and beauty, heartbreak and humor. By turns steely and delicate, these poems trace what it means to both stand trembling at precipices and to lean on wonder and beauty."Lyrical and lush, Chloe Honum's The Lantern Room takes sorrow as its artistic subject: 'Alone in my bedroom, I sob, / and the wardrobe steps forward, / like a coffin-mother, to embrace me.' As Honum presents arresting imagery and daring metaphors, she does the urgent and necessary work of imagining a feminist poetics of the unspeakable, offering a vision that fully does justice to the complexity of her subject. 'Mother Silence / could appear behind me," she writes, "waving from any one of these dark windows.' The Lantern Room is a darkly brilliant book, and Honum is a rising star in contemporary poetry." - Kristina Marie Darling

Genres: Poetry

61 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Madison Sides · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books of poetry I’ve read in a long time. I’m borrowing it from a mentor but I think I need my own copy so I can mark it up and have it to think about forever.

Truly stunning imagery that seems effortless. So many bugs. So much rain. Chloe Honum has such power over what she’s writing… I cried.

One of my favorite set of lines:
“The birds have started to shriek and the trees to sway in wide circles, / all their leaves raised. What I mean to say, whatever else / in those years was true, in Arkansas, in the wet heat / (red wings, green wings), as much as I did anything, I dreamt of you.”

[Allison Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems in this book are like bruises deliciously and achingly pressed.

[Cheri Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

We see the speaker's sadnesses reflected through the things, people, and creatures her eye settles on as it travels across the landscape of this collection; it feels like a travelogue of grief and it's beautiful.

[Claire Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

never thought I would read a collection about two of my favorite places-- Auckland and Fayetteville! a beautiful gift <3

[Adri · Rating 4 out of 5]

i fell in love with poetry bc of this book