a review of caroline brooke morrell’s Whispery her eye the flight
does poetry matter? Americans have been asking this for years and the only answer we’ve seemed to agree upon is only when it sells.
caroline brooke morrell is a dangerous domestic: a poet whose kitchen references and occasionally confessional pitch (“numerous messengers/came midriff”) is far from disconnected to an outer world containing “fields of drones” where frail humanity lopes toward “our bright extinction.”
She creates her own hum, a poetry of mythical prepositions, “knit of pearls’ “waist of heat” “roam of daughters” “fist of whales” “flinch of breath” and a mule “with silos of rubies.”
Organic and inorganic matter dance, intermarry, with “faxes clucking,” “mouthparts zipping and cindered like gold.”
If you go to a poem, wanting to carry away its meaning on a stick, you may be disappointed. “Rose paws sleep in gully violets…” I couldn’t tell you. “Fenugreek”, a peppermint field, “savory this and that.” “Rooster, cardamom and stitches/” “Pigeonholed he could have just colored it in”
but I’m glad she doesn’t.
