Frances

by Emily Kendal Frey

Genres: Poetry

38 pages, Pamphlet

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

EMILY KENDAL FREY is the author of THE GRIEF PERFORMANCE as well as several chapbooks and chapbook collaborations, including Airport (Blue Hour 2009), Frances (Poor Claudia 2010), The New Planet (Mindmade Books 2010), and Baguette (Cash Machine 2013). A second collection, SORROW ARROW, was published by Octopus Books in 2014. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she hosts The New Privacy.

Reviews

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my very favorite chapbook.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a blue moon I read something by either a renowned writer or an emerging talent (which Emily Kendal Frey most definitely is) that reminds me how much I love reading and writing poetry. Frances is such a work.

I'm not sure if Frances is one long poem or a series of short poems. It might not matter; it succeeds for me either way. Though I did find that reading this chapbook in short, staccato bursts alleviated the pervasive ache somewhat. Don't get me wrong; I like pervasive ache.

Who is Frances? Why is nearly every page addressed to her? I wondered about this and about the narrator and the relationship between the two. Or are they the same person, looking back and forth at each other in a mirror?

This is the kind of ambiguity I love best, the kind wherein I don't wish to know the answer. The subtleties of the language employed and the feelings - the ache, the nostalgia, anger and confusion, all of it - are what really make this book shine so brightly.

Frances will stick with me. That's what the best poetry does.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovingly designed suite of connected poems (or maybe it's one epic poem). Frey's short lines jab and swerve throughout, but who is Frances?

[Nate Slawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best most-fun most-heartstringy chapbook of the year. Decade. Century.

[Suna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book and the poet. Well worth the read, buy it!