Inside Bone There's Always Marrow

by Rachel Mallino

Saddle-stitched chapbook

Genres: Poetry

30 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Rachel is Founder and Editor for Tilt Press and Administrator for ITWS, an online poetry workshop.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in 42opus, BOXCAR Poetry Review, Pebble Lake Review, Weave Magazine, Memorious, Arsenic Lobster, Blue Fifth Review, Stirring, Lily, Clean Sheets, Melic Review, Triplopia, TRIM, Wicked Alice, Niederngasse, Poets Online, and others.

Her poem "Knucklebone" placed in Sundress Publication's Best Of The Net 2006.

She is the author of ANTI, a mini e-chap, published by Gold Wake Press in 2008, the author of Inside Bone There's Always Marrow (Maverick Duck Press, 2009, and most recently, 309.81 (Dancing Girl Press, 2011).

Reviews

[Mia Tryst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course, this review is going to be somewhat biased, i.e., in favor of the book because I know the author, Rachel Mallino. Of course, if I didn't think the book was good, I would just keep my mouth shut, not write anything at all. But the truth of it is, I've read the book three times now, and quite frankly it's damn good. Let's put it another way: The author disappears once I enter into the poetry. The words on paper are all that I have to navigate my thoughts. For such a short chapbook of some 26 pages, it's tightly put together. Each poem is meant to be in this book. This brings me to the conclusion that Mallino knows how to put a book together, that she didn't haphazardly cram all her eggs in one basket. She picked the best, the most polished of her work and laid them very carefully in the basket to showcase them. If I had to come up with one word to describe the work, I'd say, "raw." These poems are full of raw emotion, bared to the teeth, deeply painful and yet, startlingly removed, and eloquent in their removal. Of course, you'll have to purchase a copy for yourself to see what I mean.

Sample Poem:

Knuckle-bone


I can round my jaw enough to pop
my chewing gum without blowing
a bubble. It reminds me of my mother’s
knuckle-bone. The way it would snap out
then retract throughout the day.

I used to sink into the passenger seat,
stare at her grip - hand to steering wheel,
how the bone beneath her skin would jet
back and forth as if exercising its power
in preparation for something heavy.

At home, when she fastened gloves
around fingers, scrubbed the bath-tub
of its scum, I imagined her knuckle-bone
rubbing raw against the squeak of protection,
listened for bare skin sliding against rubber

as she peeled back gloves then broke
her hands free. That’s how I knew
it was loose, swooping down like a bird's
hardened claw, ready to connect bone to bone.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rachel Mallino's slim collection of poems packs a real punch. Every poem grabs the reader so that he or she hangs on for dear life. Yes, I realize that I have already used two overused cliches to describe this wonderful chapbook -- but after reading Mallino's work, it's hard to find other words that do her poems justice. Every work seeks to explore the darkly mysterious emotions related to death, illness, and personal loss; yet others are strangely optimistic, brimming with hope and wonder. For instance, in "Aeronautics" the speaker "explores the ocean for one/of Christa McAuliffe's strands" while a grandmother mourns "not because cancer blew up in her mouth/but because I [the granddaughter:] had witnessed how things fall apart." Yet, later on in the collection the speaker in "How My Daughter Draws" marvels at her daughter's world of "triangles, boxes, circles -- the rooftop/someone's body, an animal's eye." For me, 2009 is fast becoming the year of the chapbook (I've read so many good collections), and you should add Mallino's book to your own personal reading list.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific chap. I especially like the grandmother poems at the beginning, and "The Missing Season."