Dereliction

by Gabrielle Octavia Rucker

Dereliction, Gabrielle Octavia Rucker's debut collection of poetry, moves through childhood and into the afterlife with poems that evoke an artful and urgent sense of the author's "insatiable wandering." With cinematic imagery and formal variation, these poems effortlessly find dream-life and myth transforming the daily actions of talking on the phone or finding your reflection in the window. The bracing intimacy of Rucker's voice invites us into a precise and carefully constructed world in which we are asked to question what it means to “do the human things,” and where the poet eventually asks the reader, and possibly poetry itself, "What bloody lens holds firm between this mystery & us?"

Genres: Poetry, 21st Century

104 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2022

Reviews

[Quinn Rennerfeldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous debut, infinitely readable and relatable,

[Joe Skilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

“ Alone I was halved but not empty.
The high cabinets remained unreachable.
You hit the rowboat solo, engorging yourself on salt.

***

The secret of death twitching just inside the secret of life.
Iron dripping nectar.

*

the stage lights blinking the moment you stepped foot inside.

***

Through some unnamed and potentially uncertain violation I have been rendered unreliable to myself. I believe nothing matters, that my friends do not love me and have never loved me even though the show me otherwise. I do not anticipate safety of any kind nor do I believe I can provide it for myself, though some nights, tucked away in my bedroom, I startle myself out of a feeling of immense peace and the despair I momentarily evaded folds over me.
Tears well, the body holds tight.
I find solace alone, in this maze of trapdoors. These disorganized thoughts and coyly placed words do their job and through them I take shape without need of holistic incorporation. Wholeness, you see, is not my goal. This monologue has no end.”

[Conor Tuttle · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow wow wow. favorite book of poetry i’ve read in a while. there’s magic in these words. i’m not much of one to review what i’ve read, but if this encourages someone to pick up a copy, i’ve done my part

[angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

the following quotes sum up the book for me:

“even if the phones are listening in we must recent incoherent —“ (pg 85)

“we don’t need to be any more than we already are” (pg 86)

“everyone you’ve loved alive again as children” (pg 89)