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Orange Crush: Poems
"Muench's lush figures give great pleasure to both ear and eye, and her imaginative leaps can feel both mysterious and inevitable, in a way that recalls not only Desnos, but also Neruda."— The New York Times Book Review "Her language is refreshing, musical, attenuated."—Anne Waldman Simone Muench lives in Chicago.
88 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2010
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About the author
Simone Muench
22 books85 followersSimone Muench was raised in Benson, Louisiana and Combs, Arkansas. She is the author of five full-length collections including Lampblack & Ash (Sarabande, 2005), Orange Crush (Sarabande, 2010), and Wolf Centos (Sarabande, August, 2014). Her most recent chapbook Trace received the Black River Award (Black Lawrence Press, 2014). Some of her honors include an NEA fellowship, Illinois Arts Council fellowships, Marianne Moore Prize for Poetry, Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry, PSA’s Bright Lights/Big Verse Contest, and residency fellowships to Yaddo, Artsmith, and VSC. She received her Ph.D from UIC, and is Professor of English at Lewis University where she serves as chief faculty advisor for Jet Fuel Review. Collaborative sonnets, written with Dean Rader, are forthcoming in The American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Zyzzyva, Blackbird, and others.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 15, 2011
Also posted in Gapers Block Book Club!
Poetry is a sneaky beast – a poem can mean one thing to one person and mean something completely different to someone else. For me, Orange Crush is all about women: their persecution, their struggle to become something, and their refusal to give up. Simone Muench follows this arc in elegant little bursts of language that takes the reader from “Fever-damaged girls/…Spells/and vixens and dead calico kittens” to “We were once lithographs smeared/with ink-chapped hands, now we are/smooth and inscrutable as bone china…”
Muench’s collection starts with “Record,” a section devoted to the abuse of women – each poem a tribute to their mistreatment, be it whipping, “the room grows thick with incisions […] weather me better master” (“You Were Long Days and I Was Tiger-Lined”); witch hunts, “…the little girls/are sick, their voices muffled/by smoke and wool/hands and psalms” (“Psalm”); illness, “We lay down//fixed as wax, let the hospital’s/IV & ghost sonata troll through us” (“Count Backward Toward a Future with You in It”); or even by their own design, “Surge of marrow when the body bends/toward its own dismantling…” (“A Captivating Corset”). These poems bleed death and memories – “records” of wrongs not easily forgotten. The last poem in the section, “Photograph 3014: Execution of an Unknown Child” brings this idea sharply into focus as each part (“frame” of the photograph) cleanly captures a “Record of the executed.”
The next section, “Rehearsal,” pays homage to the “Orange Girls.” In the 17th century, the Orange Girls were women who sold small “china” oranges outside of theaters, occasionally passing messages from patrons to actresses and, allegedly, occasionally passing themselves out as well. This section consists of a long, 13-part poem detailing the Orange Girls “rehearsal” for a regular life: They sell oranges, and themselves, for an income and survival – the same way a salesman/shop owner sells his wares. Unfortunately, because they are women, and seen as little more than prostitutes, they don’t receive respect or recognition, “…we were sold/in beautiful clothes…//…we were movie stars/who never entered the frame” (“Orange Girl Suite, 1”). They are treated as unimportant – used once and thrown away, literally, “own skin gathering the Baltic’s//debris, an intersection of earrings/and quiet, wrists and ropes” (“5”). And because of who they are and what they do, the people surrounding them don’t care about their fate and may even place the blame on the girls themselves, “this city closes its windows to the odor//and forgets that a girl went missing/forgets any girl who ‘got herself strangled’” (“7”).
Redemption is gained with the next two portions of the book, however. In “Recast,” Muench provides descriptions of her envisioned Orange Girls who seem to be the ones running the show, despite their “job” and reputation. Kristy b is “…born to unzip men’s breath…/a switchblade pinned to/her taffeta thigh” (“Orange Girl Cast, 1: the fever”); Sophia k is “no odalisque in organza, she imprisons pharaohs in her spine” (“2: the femme fatale”); and Brandi h has a “…thorned orbit. Her/breath full of footprints and soporific ruin” (“3: the arsonist”). Others are “recast” from victims to victors, strong enough to define themselves as something more: Jesse m “…says, ‘Wring the nightshade from my eyes. Let me be/an explosion.’” (“6: the ferment”); Lina v “Radiates silver convexity. Her eyes/ever apogee, not apology” (“9: the elliptic mirror”); and Mackenzie c, “A pinafore on/the floorboard of the car, and she’s speeding away” (“13: the aperture”). Escape – and revenge – is sweet as we move to the last section, “Redress.” “Bind” reinterprets the ballad “False Sir John.” In the tale, Sir John woos women and then drowns them. His eighth bride, May Colven, turns the tables and drowns Sir John instead. As seen in Muench’s version, May Colven isn’t the only one who saves herself – all women save themselves, as well: “when sailors and map-makers/return to the crime, we tie their ropes/…leave them sinking/…and climb the rungs of the sea.” Others in this section do the same, freeing themselves, “But I’m adrift, no longer/your delivery” (“Pages from an Unknown Title, page 448”) and seeking retribution, “While you fumble her flesh/…she pockets your wallet” (“epilogue”).
I have to say, I love this book. Muench's style is a style, as a former wanna-be poet, I always wanted to match: short and to the point, but it cuts to the quick. Her poems have beautiful juxtapositions, such as “Lady of cornhusks & sericulture, arrowheads & fruit bats” and unusual adjectives, like “Fever-lit and gin-livid.” However, I did find myself looking up quite a few words that I didn’t recognize. For some, this might be a bit off-putting – it might take a reader out of the momentum of the poem. But there is music in the language; each poem has a lovely flow: “Broadcast of vendors & shoulders bustling with cannon/percussion in the retinal ring out of peignoir signage” (“Her Dreaming Feet”). This collection is also very visual, bringing to mind many images and many colors. Most of these images are natural, organic elements like bone and water, wood and fire, filled with deep, dark reds and yellows. These are poems that envelop you – poems that you can sink into and lose yourself in. So even if you don’t keep a dictionary handy, and even if the poems don’t make perfect sense upon first read, you still want to read them again and again.
Poetry is a sneaky beast – a poem can mean one thing to one person and mean something completely different to someone else. For me, Orange Crush is all about women: their persecution, their struggle to become something, and their refusal to give up. Simone Muench follows this arc in elegant little bursts of language that takes the reader from “Fever-damaged girls/…Spells/and vixens and dead calico kittens” to “We were once lithographs smeared/with ink-chapped hands, now we are/smooth and inscrutable as bone china…”
Muench’s collection starts with “Record,” a section devoted to the abuse of women – each poem a tribute to their mistreatment, be it whipping, “the room grows thick with incisions […] weather me better master” (“You Were Long Days and I Was Tiger-Lined”); witch hunts, “…the little girls/are sick, their voices muffled/by smoke and wool/hands and psalms” (“Psalm”); illness, “We lay down//fixed as wax, let the hospital’s/IV & ghost sonata troll through us” (“Count Backward Toward a Future with You in It”); or even by their own design, “Surge of marrow when the body bends/toward its own dismantling…” (“A Captivating Corset”). These poems bleed death and memories – “records” of wrongs not easily forgotten. The last poem in the section, “Photograph 3014: Execution of an Unknown Child” brings this idea sharply into focus as each part (“frame” of the photograph) cleanly captures a “Record of the executed.”
The next section, “Rehearsal,” pays homage to the “Orange Girls.” In the 17th century, the Orange Girls were women who sold small “china” oranges outside of theaters, occasionally passing messages from patrons to actresses and, allegedly, occasionally passing themselves out as well. This section consists of a long, 13-part poem detailing the Orange Girls “rehearsal” for a regular life: They sell oranges, and themselves, for an income and survival – the same way a salesman/shop owner sells his wares. Unfortunately, because they are women, and seen as little more than prostitutes, they don’t receive respect or recognition, “…we were sold/in beautiful clothes…//…we were movie stars/who never entered the frame” (“Orange Girl Suite, 1”). They are treated as unimportant – used once and thrown away, literally, “own skin gathering the Baltic’s//debris, an intersection of earrings/and quiet, wrists and ropes” (“5”). And because of who they are and what they do, the people surrounding them don’t care about their fate and may even place the blame on the girls themselves, “this city closes its windows to the odor//and forgets that a girl went missing/forgets any girl who ‘got herself strangled’” (“7”).
Redemption is gained with the next two portions of the book, however. In “Recast,” Muench provides descriptions of her envisioned Orange Girls who seem to be the ones running the show, despite their “job” and reputation. Kristy b is “…born to unzip men’s breath…/a switchblade pinned to/her taffeta thigh” (“Orange Girl Cast, 1: the fever”); Sophia k is “no odalisque in organza, she imprisons pharaohs in her spine” (“2: the femme fatale”); and Brandi h has a “…thorned orbit. Her/breath full of footprints and soporific ruin” (“3: the arsonist”). Others are “recast” from victims to victors, strong enough to define themselves as something more: Jesse m “…says, ‘Wring the nightshade from my eyes. Let me be/an explosion.’” (“6: the ferment”); Lina v “Radiates silver convexity. Her eyes/ever apogee, not apology” (“9: the elliptic mirror”); and Mackenzie c, “A pinafore on/the floorboard of the car, and she’s speeding away” (“13: the aperture”). Escape – and revenge – is sweet as we move to the last section, “Redress.” “Bind” reinterprets the ballad “False Sir John.” In the tale, Sir John woos women and then drowns them. His eighth bride, May Colven, turns the tables and drowns Sir John instead. As seen in Muench’s version, May Colven isn’t the only one who saves herself – all women save themselves, as well: “when sailors and map-makers/return to the crime, we tie their ropes/…leave them sinking/…and climb the rungs of the sea.” Others in this section do the same, freeing themselves, “But I’m adrift, no longer/your delivery” (“Pages from an Unknown Title, page 448”) and seeking retribution, “While you fumble her flesh/…she pockets your wallet” (“epilogue”).
I have to say, I love this book. Muench's style is a style, as a former wanna-be poet, I always wanted to match: short and to the point, but it cuts to the quick. Her poems have beautiful juxtapositions, such as “Lady of cornhusks & sericulture, arrowheads & fruit bats” and unusual adjectives, like “Fever-lit and gin-livid.” However, I did find myself looking up quite a few words that I didn’t recognize. For some, this might be a bit off-putting – it might take a reader out of the momentum of the poem. But there is music in the language; each poem has a lovely flow: “Broadcast of vendors & shoulders bustling with cannon/percussion in the retinal ring out of peignoir signage” (“Her Dreaming Feet”). This collection is also very visual, bringing to mind many images and many colors. Most of these images are natural, organic elements like bone and water, wood and fire, filled with deep, dark reds and yellows. These are poems that envelop you – poems that you can sink into and lose yourself in. So even if you don’t keep a dictionary handy, and even if the poems don’t make perfect sense upon first read, you still want to read them again and again.
August 2, 2010
In her newest collection of poetry, Orange Crush, Simone Muench devotes an entire section to the Orange Girls. According to the back jacket of the book, "In the seventeenth century, the closest a woman ever got to a theater was just outside the door, selling sweet "china" oranges at sixpence each -- or maybe herself --- to the audience." These girls, we later find out, were viewed as just a little better than common prostitutes. For many readers (including myself) this bit of women's history is new, and intriguing. As I dove into these poems, I was first reminded of the novels of Jean Rhys. Some of the lines are best read in their historical context, that is a description of an Orange Girl's experience in eras past. For example, in the voice of one girl we hear an explanation of her job and maybe even her identity: "there are only two ways/to peel an orange/in fragments or in one/coiling brightness."
But most of the poems in this section are chillingly contemporary. For example, in one poem, one girl laments "We were translated by churchwomen/who placed umlauts over our words". In another poem, the poet explains the plight of a murdered girl who was "dragged along the waterfront//dropped in a dumpster wearing/a yellow shawl and pearl earrings." The city that hovers over this girl is cruel, "thick with cold cases and ripped pantyhose/ligature marks and headlines blaming women//for wearing short skirts after dark."
This is Muench's style: She blends surreal images with details so gritty that readers may find themselves looking at their fingers to see if there is dirt on their skin. Furthermore, Muench's work may be rooted in history, but there's no denying the contemporary "feel" of her words, thus proving that women's history (or any history, really) is not linear, but a constant loop. What we know, or don't know about the past, may (and probably will) reappear in our present.
The Orange Girls are center stage in this collection, but they have a strong supporting cast. There's another section of poems devoted to today's Orange Girls, so to speak. This section, titled "Orange Girls Cast" contains several poems each dedicated to a contemporary woman poet. For example, "the train track" describes poet mary b (Mary Biddinger) with references to Biddinger's book Prairie Fire. Another poem, "the arsonist" is dedicated to brandi h (Brandi Homan), and so on and so forth. Even if one does not know the references or the particular works of these contemporary women poets, it would be easy to get lost (in a good way) in Muench's lyrical language.
Other poems in the book dive into the lives of forgotten women and bits of pushed aside history. For instance, "A Captivating Corset" plays with images of women's constrictive clothing, explaining "We look for refuge but drift to damage/towards asphyxiation & cord slippage." In another poem, "Bind" Muench uses an old ballad for a backdrop to murder: "Amidst a cage of drowned brides/there is one who floats/free. Her veil still attached/drags her upward/into warmer water."
The work of Simone Muench is new to me, and I have to say that Orange Crush was not an easy read. I have read this collection twice, and while many of the poems contained images that stayed with me long after I put the book down, other works left me breathless and bewildered, wondering about these women, and the stories told that I didn't quite understand.
But most of the poems in this section are chillingly contemporary. For example, in one poem, one girl laments "We were translated by churchwomen/who placed umlauts over our words". In another poem, the poet explains the plight of a murdered girl who was "dragged along the waterfront//dropped in a dumpster wearing/a yellow shawl and pearl earrings." The city that hovers over this girl is cruel, "thick with cold cases and ripped pantyhose/ligature marks and headlines blaming women//for wearing short skirts after dark."
This is Muench's style: She blends surreal images with details so gritty that readers may find themselves looking at their fingers to see if there is dirt on their skin. Furthermore, Muench's work may be rooted in history, but there's no denying the contemporary "feel" of her words, thus proving that women's history (or any history, really) is not linear, but a constant loop. What we know, or don't know about the past, may (and probably will) reappear in our present.
The Orange Girls are center stage in this collection, but they have a strong supporting cast. There's another section of poems devoted to today's Orange Girls, so to speak. This section, titled "Orange Girls Cast" contains several poems each dedicated to a contemporary woman poet. For example, "the train track" describes poet mary b (Mary Biddinger) with references to Biddinger's book Prairie Fire. Another poem, "the arsonist" is dedicated to brandi h (Brandi Homan), and so on and so forth. Even if one does not know the references or the particular works of these contemporary women poets, it would be easy to get lost (in a good way) in Muench's lyrical language.
Other poems in the book dive into the lives of forgotten women and bits of pushed aside history. For instance, "A Captivating Corset" plays with images of women's constrictive clothing, explaining "We look for refuge but drift to damage/towards asphyxiation & cord slippage." In another poem, "Bind" Muench uses an old ballad for a backdrop to murder: "Amidst a cage of drowned brides/there is one who floats/free. Her veil still attached/drags her upward/into warmer water."
The work of Simone Muench is new to me, and I have to say that Orange Crush was not an easy read. I have read this collection twice, and while many of the poems contained images that stayed with me long after I put the book down, other works left me breathless and bewildered, wondering about these women, and the stories told that I didn't quite understand.
June 29, 2015
Fantastic. These are the kinds of poems I aspire to write.
October 25, 2018
A review by Mark Eleveld, published by Barnes&Noble Review in 2010 - Orange Crush by SIMONE MUENCH
--
Simone Muench is a Chicago poet by way of Louisiana. Her third book of poems, Orange Crush, sets its tone early with her opening lines: "Trouble came and trouble / brought greasy, ungenerous things." The tempting call in this poem, "Hex," evokes a depravity which sets the stage for Muench's centra
l characters: London's seventeenth-century "orange girls," who sat outside theaters selling china oranges for six-pence each--or, more accurately, selling themselves to the audience, to the men, to the trouble to come.
The title of the volume plays on the soda pop, the fun in orange and the playfulness in crush--whether a violence to something or a young love for someone. The poems, divided into four sections: "Record," "Rehearsal," "Recast," and "Redress" are chock full of historical moments and tough views on the continued subjugation of women. The poem "Orange Girl Suite" stands out as a passionate (both loving and horrifying) revelation of the female plight.
Muench's word choices catch a hard gentility of body and mind with precise and vile moments: "my skin is soft/the safety's off." And Orange Crush is highly musical; at times it has the pace of a horror-movie score, leading the reader through blows, lacerations, and violent deaths. But the poems don't offer observation from a point of weakness, quite the opposite. There is no whining, only a continued fascination, and, in some cases, enjoyment in the said depravity.
"[These poems] acknowledge the violence inherent in human beings," yet realize our "choosing creation over destruction, to both survive and resist … empathy," offers Muench by way of context. One of today's best poets, she has produced an astonishing work that is poignant, tells a story, and both challenges and pleases the reader. All in all, his is a highly effective, alarming collection of poems.
from "Orange Girl Suite"
hunter, I hand you
a red sweater, whisper
of precipitation.
trigger-happy laughter
in the light-latticed
forest. you burn
my nightgown
to undergrowth
in this feral
season. overseer
to all small
deaths, your lips
an orange smear
of cordiality.
--
Simone Muench is a Chicago poet by way of Louisiana. Her third book of poems, Orange Crush, sets its tone early with her opening lines: "Trouble came and trouble / brought greasy, ungenerous things." The tempting call in this poem, "Hex," evokes a depravity which sets the stage for Muench's centra
l characters: London's seventeenth-century "orange girls," who sat outside theaters selling china oranges for six-pence each--or, more accurately, selling themselves to the audience, to the men, to the trouble to come.
The title of the volume plays on the soda pop, the fun in orange and the playfulness in crush--whether a violence to something or a young love for someone. The poems, divided into four sections: "Record," "Rehearsal," "Recast," and "Redress" are chock full of historical moments and tough views on the continued subjugation of women. The poem "Orange Girl Suite" stands out as a passionate (both loving and horrifying) revelation of the female plight.
Muench's word choices catch a hard gentility of body and mind with precise and vile moments: "my skin is soft/the safety's off." And Orange Crush is highly musical; at times it has the pace of a horror-movie score, leading the reader through blows, lacerations, and violent deaths. But the poems don't offer observation from a point of weakness, quite the opposite. There is no whining, only a continued fascination, and, in some cases, enjoyment in the said depravity.
"[These poems] acknowledge the violence inherent in human beings," yet realize our "choosing creation over destruction, to both survive and resist … empathy," offers Muench by way of context. One of today's best poets, she has produced an astonishing work that is poignant, tells a story, and both challenges and pleases the reader. All in all, his is a highly effective, alarming collection of poems.
from "Orange Girl Suite"
hunter, I hand you
a red sweater, whisper
of precipitation.
trigger-happy laughter
in the light-latticed
forest. you burn
my nightgown
to undergrowth
in this feral
season. overseer
to all small
deaths, your lips
an orange smear
of cordiality.
February 14, 2010
"As is widely known, the U.S. military is one of the last bastions of an aggressive masculine ethos in a society that collectively, if unconsciously, worships at the altar of feminism." ~http://www.charlotteobserver.com/view... Or, so says the conservative pundits on a possible repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'
Simone Muench's book comes in a timely fashion, as it is proof that these notions of a nation "worshiping at the altar of feminism" are unfounded and horrifying double-think. She explores the oppression and abuse to women from the past and still-present, all the while incorporating orange as a color and object throughout the book. Feminism is far from worshiped today, and yet it is not as dead as a number of women by hands of men, by the hands of aggression. Feminism is a political and philosophical movement that is struggling to bring equality to our environment; this book reveals such struggle still happening and offers hope for its redress.
Simone Muench's book comes in a timely fashion, as it is proof that these notions of a nation "worshiping at the altar of feminism" are unfounded and horrifying double-think. She explores the oppression and abuse to women from the past and still-present, all the while incorporating orange as a color and object throughout the book. Feminism is far from worshiped today, and yet it is not as dead as a number of women by hands of men, by the hands of aggression. Feminism is a political and philosophical movement that is struggling to bring equality to our environment; this book reveals such struggle still happening and offers hope for its redress.
September 11, 2013
I have to start this review by saying I love Simone Muench, I love Sarabande Books, and I love the title Orange Crush. Now that we're at full disclosure, I'll add that I enjoyed reading this collection, and it does deliver exactly what the blurb promises: "lightning associations." Here are some of my favorites:
"Is desire a viral captivity? Or, a tender pour
of milk into an infinite glass?"
"there are only two ways
to peel an orange
in fragments or in one
coiling brightness."
"the railroad a rusted zipper"
"Jacaranda tree in lean dark clothes."
"Is desire a viral captivity? Or, a tender pour
of milk into an infinite glass?"
"there are only two ways
to peel an orange
in fragments or in one
coiling brightness."
"the railroad a rusted zipper"
"Jacaranda tree in lean dark clothes."
Read
October 12, 2014I am most of the way through this and have enjoyed Muench's adept ways with language but also been disappointed by certain elements of these poems.
As beautiful as the imagery is here, I often feel that readers are not given much more than beautiful imagery. Which leaves the poems somewhere in the realm of abstraction much of the time, or at the very least lacking context that might make the reader more invested in the poems.
As beautiful as the imagery is here, I often feel that readers are not given much more than beautiful imagery. Which leaves the poems somewhere in the realm of abstraction much of the time, or at the very least lacking context that might make the reader more invested in the poems.
October 1, 2010
Unfortunately (for me), it seems as if nothing will overshadow my love for Muench's debut, The Air Lost in Breathing, which is as near to perfection as a book of poetry could ever hope to be. With that said, Orange Crush is a glorious exploration through language, and a stunning homage to women, both past and present. Such a pleasure to get lost in the poetic skill of Simone Muench!
December 4, 2010
Like listening to Tom Waits for the first time, reading Muench's Orange Crush made me realize that I'm not alone in the world. For a moment, I had total clarity.
December 15, 2010
This is a great book.
August 23, 2013
Often wished I had a dictionary handy. A really good, gigantic dictionary--perhaps like the OED, which Muench herself used in the creation of these poems.
So awesome.
So awesome.
October 1, 2010
simone muench really likes the word "bone"
June 30, 2016
Tart and gripping language play--the fusion of the grim fates of women in the past and present.
April 18, 2026
I picked this book up at a Used Book Store. The title caught my eye since orange is my favorite color and secondly, Yusef Komunyakaa blurbed the back cover.
In Orange Crush we get the historical taste of the 17th century on the sweet side, sour or bitterness of an Orange Girl. I admire poets like Muench, she gets right to the point with a unique blend of clarity, body and mind.
In Orange Crush we get the historical taste of the 17th century on the sweet side, sour or bitterness of an Orange Girl. I admire poets like Muench, she gets right to the point with a unique blend of clarity, body and mind.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews