Museum of Accidents

by Rachel Zucker

"Rachel Zucker may be Generation X's likeliest heir to the confessional legacy of Sylvia Plath, Louise Glück, and Sharon Olds."—The Believer

Rending the terrorizing forces of modern existence from abstraction and placing them directly in our laps, Museum of Accidents is a brutally honest epic of domestic proportions.

Rachel Zucker is the author of three collections of poetry and co-editor of Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections. A graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, she currently lives in New York City with her husband and three sons, where she is a certified labor doula.

Genres: Poetry, Feminism, Adult

82 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Rachel Zucker is the author of Museum of Accidents (Wave Books, 2009), which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of The Bad Wife Handbook (Wesleyan University, 2007), The Last Clear Narrative (Wesleyan University, 2004), Eating in the Underworld (Wesleyan University, 2003), and Annunciation (The Center for Book Arts, 2002), as well as the co-editor (with Arielle Greenberg) of Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days and Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections (both from the University of Iowa Press). A graduate of Yale and the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Zucker has taught at several institutions, including NYU and Yale. She currently lives in NYC with her husband and three sons, and is a certified labor doula.

For more information on this author, go to:
http://www.wavepoetry.com/authors/63-...

Reviews

[Kaethe Schwehn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've read a book of poetry cover to cover in the same sitting. And it's been a long time since a book truly felt like sustenance. I inhaled these poems. Perhaps this is because the subject matter (or rather, one of the subjects), motherhood, spoke directly to my current situation, but it was the form of the poems that was comfort more than the superficial subject. Zucker's poems move headlong through the rubble and gleam of domestic life. Fragments, lines of prose, discrete images, rants, dialogue, white space, lyrical turns, lists, anaphora...it's all here. Writers like to talk about other writers, other works that "gave them permission." This book is a permission-giver for me. Zucker bravely and unapologetically uses whatever "way of saying" is necessary to confront life at a particular and specific moment. This book is fearless and remarkable.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loving making my way through Rachel Zucker's work, and am becoming a quick convert. I love the way she blows up or enlarges or zooms in on domesticity to show its texture—which is fraught and fucked and trying, and also a space of unspeakable beauty and love. My favorites in this collection: "What Dark Thing," "Long Lines to Stave Off Suicide," "Don't Say Anything Beautiful Kiss Me," "Sunday Morning," and the terrific, terrific "More Accidents."

So funny and odd to read the negative reviews here, to find someone who so vehemently dislikes the book because it "rambles like a woman in crisis and panic and never finds any coherency or true resolution."

Because that's exactly what I love about it.

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly smart and brave. Sometimes funny, sometimes devastating. It is a huge relief to read the work of someone who tells the truth (her truth) about subjects (marriage, motherhood) so many people treat in a superficial, Disney-esque sort of way. Like all deeply honest work, this book feels like a companion to me, one that makes the world less lonely. Plus, I was so happy to fall in love with poems so different from the lyrics I usually gravitate towards. Thank you, Rachel Zucker!

[Edgar Allan Hoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

if she hates being a mom so much why tf does she keep making more

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess you could file this under "neurotic-hipster-mom-language-poetry." Zucker's voice has undeniable force, and some of these poems are vivid in their emotional violence and disjointed verse. A lot of it, however, feels confessional in the worst sense of the word: rote, self-absorbed, hysterical, and lyrically sloppy. The author's high-strung personality becomes numbing after a while; it's like being verbally assaulted at top speed for an hour straight.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not make it through this collection. The poems were so poorly written it made my eyes ache. After I read Zucker's poem about Spalding Gray (the horribly named "When All Hands Were Called to Make a Sail"), I wanted to throw the book on the ground and walk out of the room. Because it was a library book, I obviously had to restrain myself. Seriously, though, this was some sucktastic poetry. I feel like I need to re-read Figure Studies to cleanse my palette.

[missy jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems make me feel less alone.

Rachel Zucker is an unflinching poet--brutally honest with herself, which I admire and sort of covet. (It also helps that she's a fierce mother, a doula and natural birth advocate, and a kind and generous person.)

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long-form poetry--a rarity in itself these days, but well-written, too. Playful, serious, motherly, exasperated, contemplative, shocked--a full range of emotions engaged in quotidian, historical, political, and cultural issues. Traditional poetic forms eschewed here but not exchanged for hermetic avant-gardism--thoughtful, engaging, and accessible poetry. (Well, a warning about "accessible": readers uncomfortable with anything more challenging than the, um, oeuvre of Rod McKuen should avoid this.)

[Allyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why am I not writing longer lines?
Why am I not writing longer poems?
Why am I not writing?

[Charlotte Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this!! I can definitely see Alice Notley’s influence on the experimental form and use of narrative — it feels really unique but not so abstract that it’s meaningless. I love her use of syntax, especially in the poems around motherhood.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wet and North winds both lover us, wanting, bitter,
to bring us in close in the small hold.

Tongues loll and laze, while the flap
and snapping above: crazy wanderlust.

The basin must candle, keep her passengers,
though the hero abandoned the ferry for the real sea.

Is nothing worthy?

Wallet on bench. Wallet at home. Wallet at rest.

The child, even his cries, must the ship balance,
makes me wild to right this unhumanly keeling.

I have six arms, am the dismembered figurehead,
ballast, breasts covered in blue scales.

I am at rudder, at bow, at mast, at rigging,
at deck, at halyard, at stern, when the hold

explodes with screaming.

One boy has stolen the other's marble. The boat shifts, tilts.
A wallet washes up against us.

Is this what you meant when you said a family steadied you?

Is this what they see when they see me and my six handless arms,
shining torso and cuspid humour?

The figurehead has no need for eyelids, must
on-guard, vigil, dry eyed.

But she dreams. Dreams.

The sail, its fine apparel, its linen long-shadow: a tiny hand
opening, budlike

- When All Hands Were Called to Make Sail, for Spalding Gray, pg. 10-11

* * *

1.
I'm tired of watching Kennedy die. and I

'm tired of J. Jr. in the pinafore and innocence
and of saying we didn't know
deserve desire get exactly what we

wished for - oh, let's not go down
to Dallas; instead

let's get booed.

2.
when one encounters this animal there will be
a great flood
when one encounters this animal there will be
a terrible epidemic
when one encounters this animal there will be
holocaust
when one encounters this animal there will be
catastrophe

it is a cannibal
it is a cannibal
it is a cannibal
it is

3.
in here, where
civilians not allowed

4.
did you pack it yourself?
has it always been in your possession?
was it ever beyond your control?
did anyone ever give you anything?
is anything wrapped?
are there electronics?
do you have any gifts?

5.
yes: I have the 1st photo after the end of America.

would you care to unwrap it?
hang it in your cockpit?

6.
According to Ad Reinhardt Ad Reinhardt's black paintings
were the last paintings anyone could make. At least
the last black paintings. Good

poetry blew the top of Dickinson's
head off and according to Ginsberg would

save America. The poem

7.
once thought to be a grassy knoll
is often mistaken for a bulletproof
door but may be just another black

painting so open it: release the fanged
animal America that can unsave this
president who's never had his

head blown off. Do it - due to
turbulence the masks suddenly fallen -
grasp - grasp - open the door barely muffling
the tripped alarm

8.
save America save America
from the little self save
America save America save
self save self from self from
save from save from America
save from safe America self
safe America self safe America
self ave ave ave ave
ave ave ave ave ave ave
ave av av av of of of
of of of of of of of of of
of [vav] [vav] [vav] [vav]
of [vav] [vav] [vav] [vav]
of [vav] [vav] [vav] [vav]
of of save of save. save of
save. safe of save. save.
safe of save. save. save.
of safe. safe. safe. safe.
safe. safe. safe. safe. safe.
safe. safe. safe. safe. safe.
safe. safe. safe. safe. safe.
safe. safe. of. __________
______________________
______________________ of
off.

- To Save America, pg. 27-29

* * *

When we made love you had
the dense body of a Doberman
and the square head of a Rottweiler.

With my eyes closed I saw:
a light green plate with seared scallops
and a perfect fillet of salmon on a cedar plank.

Now I am safe in the deep V of a weekday
wanting to tell you how the world
is full of street signs and strollers
and pregnant women in spandex.

The bed and desk both want me.
The windows, the view, the idea of Paris.

With my minutes, I chip away at the idiom,
an unmarked pebble in a fast current. Later,
on my way to the store, a boy with a basketball
yells, You scared? to someone else, and the things
on the list to buy come home with me.
And the baby. And your body.

- After Baby After Baby, pg. 52

* * *

The other day Matt Rohrer said,
the next time you feel yourself going dark
in a poem, just don't, and see what happens.

That was when Matt, Deborah, Landau,
Catherine Barnett, and I were chatting,
on our way to somewhere and something else.

In her office, a few minutes earlier, Deborah
had asked, are you happy? And I said, um, yes,
actually, and Debora: well, I'm not -

all I do is work and work. And the phone
rang every thirty seconds and between
calls Deborah said, I asked Catherine

if she was happy and Catherine said, life
isn't about happiness it's about helping
other people. I shrugged, not knowing how

to respond to such a fine idea.
So, what makes you happy?
Deborah asked, in an accusatory way,

and I said, I guess, the baby, really,
because he makes me stop
working? And Deborah looked sad

and just then her husband called
and Deborah said, Mark, I've got
Rachel Zucker here, she's happy,

I'll have to call you back. And then
we left her office and went downstairs
to the salon where a few weeks before

we'd read poems for the Not for Mothers Only
anthology and I especially liked Julie Carr's
poem about crying while driving while listening to

the radio report news of the war while her kids
fought in the back seat while she remembered
her mother crying while driving, listening to

news about the war. There were a lot of poems
that night about crying, about the war, about
fighting, about rage, anger, and work. Afterward

Katy Lederer came up to me and said,
"I don't believe in happiness" - you're such a bitch
for using that line, now no one else can.

Deborah and I walked through that now-sedated space
which felt smaller and shabby without Anne Waldman
and all those women and poems and suddenly

there was Catherine in a splash of sunlight
at the foot of a flight of stairs talking to Matt Rohrer
on his way to a room or rooms I've never seen.

And that's when Deborah told Matt that I was
happy and that Catherine thought life wasn't about
happiness and Deborah laughed a little and flipped

her hair (she is quite glamorous) and said, but Matt,
are you happy? Well, Matt said he had a bit of a cold
but otherwise was and that's when he said,

next time you feel yourself going dark in a poem,
just don't, and see what happens. And then,
because it was Julian's sixth birthday, Deborah went

to bring him cupcakes at school and Catherine and I
went to talk to graduate students who teach poetry
to children in hospitals and shelters and other

unhappy places and Matt went up the stairs to the room
or rooms I've never seen. That was last week and now
I'm here, in bed, turning toward something I haven't felt

for a long while. A few minutes ago I held our baby up
to the bright window and sand the song I always sing
before he takes his nap. He whined and struggled

the way toddlers do, wanting to move on to something
else, something next, and his infancy is almost over.
He is crying himself to sleep now and I will not say

how full of sorrow I feel, but will turn instead
to that day, only a week ago, when I was
the happiest poet in the room, including Matt Rohrer.

- Poem, pg. 73-

[Katt Hansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sometimes everything comes together and the poetry works. More often than not, she's so emotional as to be disjointed, and the raw pain and agony of what spills out on the page doesn't leave me moved, so much as pitying and concerned for her husband and family. This isn't a person I want to know, and reading this poetry like this feels too personal sometimes, and too much. Do I give a high star rating for having moved me at all? Or do I kind of wince and turn away, not entirely content with long passages that is nothing more than words that sound good when you say them but have no real meaning at all?

One of the reviews said for those who don't like this work to say what and where. I don't like "More Accidents" because it rambles like a woman in crisis and panic and never finds any coherency or true resolution. And I don't like "The Death of Everything Even New York City" for being pretentious and overblown, and using language which has been used and nothing new offered at all. "Sunday Morning" started well but went into an overly needy sort of whine that left me thinking if it had ended sooner I might have liked it.

"Welcome to the Blighted Ovum Support Group" was one of the poems I actually DID like - here the emotion and the thoughts come across in a way that's meaningful, and I felt her pain. This was real and this was her true voice, but this too almost felt like a therapy piece, better kept private and shared with those close. Raw pain is difficult to look upon isn't it? Thought "Paying Down the Debt: Happiness" also had a good sense of feeling, a message you could understand (especially if you're a mother). These are poems you can cling to and even enjoy to an extent.

But too much of the book wasn't. So...my rating will be a 2.5 stars. I wanted to like this better, but I just couldn't, and was relieved to close the book and walk away.

[Christina M Rau · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times difficult to follow, Museum of Accidents offers long poems that cross over into prose and cross back again that are raw and honest. The speakers complain without complaining--they simply speak of the realistic happenings of the life of a mother and teacher and wife, and it's not sentiment. Finally, in Rachel Zucker we find someone who doesn't praise all that is being a mother and teacher. In that honesty, we find how much she really loves being those things.

The highlights were singular lines that follow up descriptions, lines like "I want someone to ask me if I like my job" after listing how her writing students say "You never said it had to be interesting" and later on pointing out how two papers she must grade have the author's names spelled incorrectly. These passages are especially enjoyable for those of us in academia, allowing us to realize that we are not alone.

Mostly, however, the poems travel through deeply troubling emotions of loss and being happy afterwards.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

((I wish negative reviews of poetry books were more specific on what they disliked. The positive reviews always feel so specific and thoughtful, while the negative reviews leave me wondering why the book had such a bad impact on the person.))

I really enjoyed this book, which to me has all the best elements of confessional poetry without slipping into the overly-whiny or neurotic voice that we see in so many of the amateur confessional poets. Zucker is playful with language, using the shape and music of the words to give texture to the content. The quality of the writing is consistent throughout but one poem sticks out from the others for me, "Welcome to the Blighted Ovum Support Group," which was powerful, honest, and will stay with me for quite a while. It's a wonderful book that I will definitely re-read again in the future.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I make no attempt to hide that I like confessional poetry. Despite the backlash, I feel that it has it's place and purpose. But even I can see a confessional voice that goes too far... While I think many would think that this is that voice, I just can't. It has such a pure selfishness to it... Honestly, (and everyone on my email list who was forced to read a poorly typed version of The Day I Lost My Deja Vu can attest to this,) I fell in love with this book. Sometimes a good poet is just brave enough to say what you don' think you can. In that way, I can easily say that this is the best description of parenthood I have come across. This book made me feel less alone. As a writer, I would be happy with that. As. Reader, I am thankful.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't typically "get" poetry. Until now.

[Lola Anaya · Rating 5 out of 5]

listened to zucker read this book and it was just excellent. especially after reading "the poetics of wrongness" a little bit ago, this really gave context to her lectures. this collection is harrowing and a painfully thoughtful reflection about women's bodies, motherhood, marriage, and life. there's this one line where she calls monogamy "monotony" and corrects herself and i was like oop-

zucker is so great. i would read anything she writes. definitely find a content warning before you read this if interested.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best and most engaging contemporary collection of poetry I have read in a long time. Zucker's voice is raw, intense, and feels like a friend pouring their thoughts and feelings directly into your head. Her poems - often in the form of long, sprawling, stream-of-consciousness lines - are a masterwork of both control and authenticity. A poet for our age.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my cup of tea. I picked up this book after hearing the author read her poem "Don't Say Anything Beautiful Kiss Me," which is a cool rebuttal to the idea of a blazon (e.g., Shakespeare's Sonnet 130), but I wasn't wild about any of the other poems in this volume. It's mostly a compilation of ideas, thoughts, and feelings on motherhood, which isn't what I was expecting.

[Emily Pérez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book hit me at the right time. Zucker's expansive style manages to contain the narrative, the confessional, the lyric, the experimental; I did not know all these modes could exist within a single poem. Her writing about marriage and parenting cuts sweetly. I will read this book again.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems center the domestic life and take up as much space as they want to, which makes me happy.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like a 3.5. Some of these poems I LOVED. I really fell into the long poems and found them incredibly enjoyable. But also some of them were not . . . poems? I have no idea what makes a poem officially. But to me it's something about associative leaps (thanks Robert Bly). And many of these poems don't seem to leap anywhere.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Museum of Accidents is a book of experimental poems (ish) about the anxiety of motherhood, how it can overwhelm, displace, but also teach, give hope, improve lives.

I say experimental(ish) because while there are plenty of examples of experimentalism, use of white space, parentheses, em dashes and ellipses as well as nonsense words, pieces of words, etc., there are also plenty of verses and whole poems that follow a more traditional route. The blend of the knowable and unknowable, the traditional with the experimental, is a nicely blended metaphor in itself for motherhood.

It's a very post 9/11 book, with thoughts and ideas that wouldn't have made any sense in a world before the towers fell. For example, in the poem "Long Lives to Stave Off Suicide", there is this stanza:

why, asks my son on the subway, should you
say something if you see something?
pointing at the poster of an abandoned black
duffel on a subway platform. I am trying
to breathe but he's asking and pointing. I say,
birds don't have teeth and need to eat
small rocks, stones, sand to break down food. he
nods, pats my hand.

It's a moment every modern parent has gone through, the internal debate when a child asks about something, do you tell the truth? Make the child anxious? Or do you distract with nonsensical replies about something else entirely?

A unique and well constructed book.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

... and 5 stars for most of it. Only a few poems toward the end seem slack. The rest are incredible.

What I love is that sometimes, I admit, I will slip out of the poetry and think "But her husband... her kids... mabe this is TOO honest?" and then within three lines of my thinking that she will say, basically, "Someone tells me that my husband and kids are going to read this and never forgive me." Every reader anxiety gets folded back into the poems. Once you realize your judgment is a thread that's just getting woven in with everything else, you just hand it over.

Plath's the logical comparison -- but Plath's confessionalism happened in a theater that ran parallel to her life. It happened in myth, in history, in character. I think what makes Zucker a complicated heir to Plath is that her confessionalism happens right out from inside her life. Or seems to -- maybe this is as much a parallel theater as Plath's. In which case -- it's an incredible illusion.

[Eleanor]

The best poem in this book relates to the title and is called "More Accidents." Overall, I seem to have enjoyed these poems because I raced through the collection, so I am I stumbling around my own reaction? Has me thinking about what it means for a word/space/stanza or a poem itself to be necessary. Also, kinds of detail: names, for example. Full names. Full, recognizable names. Thinking.

A vague review? It's all I can muster now. To re-read, perhaps, in a few months.

[Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected to love this, but I didn't. Partly I think because confessional poetry seems exhausted and the neurotic young-mother voice is wholly unrelatable for me. Also, the student-bashing troubled me - she didn't really have much to say either, so why should she fault her students for her own shortcomings. The more language-poetry ones fell short of surprising. It's all fine, but not as great as I'd expected given the hype.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of this was heavy, or at least it struck me hard. Perhaps poignant is a better word than heavy, but with a poignancy which spoke plainly of those parts of ourselves we most want to admire (love for children, our ability to help, the way we are depended on and depend on others). All of it was smart, some of it was funny (Hey Allen Ginsburg Where Have You Gone and What Would You Think of my Drugs?)

[Sean Lovelace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lively, pops, crackles all that--word play everywhere. Subjects of marriage, kids, stress on writing life, Jewish identity, sex, students of writing, others.

I thought it read fast and lean. Then I reread it. Solid.

[Betsy Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Rachel's work--her poems and her essays--and this is by far my favorite book of hers. The voice is 100% authentic, and i'm totally rapt by the ease-amidst-severe-chaos that these poems emanate. It's a very wise book.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Zucker's Balancing the Tide interview.