To be incarnate is to have a body, especially a human body. It is also to have a spirit that is made comprehensible through the gift of form. Severson-Baker is most definitely incarnate in both these senses in such poems as \u201cOf.\u201d In it, she writes \u201cthe opening of the orgasm was black.\u201d This black female space soon becomes \u201cthe black of being born\u201d and \u201ca coming as if to love when love was new.\u201d It\u2019s like the Garden of Eden incarnated within Severson-Baker\u2019s body (or in the body of her poems, at any rate). Pretty great stuff.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s another kind of incarnation going on here, however\u2014a little bit of Frankenstein\u2019s monster, who was incarnate in the second sense only (comprehensible through the gift of form) and was a profoundly romantic construction to boot. I don\u2019t throw him in here randomly, because Severson-Baker\u2019s poems are both romantic and tightly constructed as well, and lead, as did Frankenstein\u2019s monster, to a life beyond the words that gave them life. I have in mind Severson-Baker\u2019s endings. She is astonishingly adept at endings. She nails them almost every time. Read the book for them. They are a wonder. The best of these poems are like clockwork devices for unlocking meaning and identity out of nothingness. They appear to stumble along, with sometimes willfully deliberate lines that read as authorial intrusions, but then close on amazing endings that open the whole structure of the poem into total wordlessness and physicality. Here\u2019s an example of one of those endings:<\/p>\n
When it is over
\nhe kisses her forehead once, twice,
\nslow, so she will know his gentleness
\nis a choice.<\/p>\n
Here, the closing words \u201ca choice\u201d are like landing en pointe<\/em>\u2014and with much of the same force of determination as that painful dance step.<\/p>\n In the end, though, Severson-Baker\u2019s technique remains profoundly romantic, and thus prone to the dangers of romance\u2019s other side: the unearned emotion called sentimentality. It shows up in \u201cActias Luna<\/em>, Luna Moth,\u201d which ends with a clunk: \u201cMouthless, \/ I cannot call, but wait for you \/ beneath the moon.\u201d There\u2019s no resonance there. I think that\u2019s because these poems are mainly intricate expressions of ego, self-hood, and intellect, which come to moments of release that are so physical they have no words at all.<\/p>\n Severson-Baker\u2019s best poems are more than playthings for her self\u2014they are her body dancing. Although she describes herself as mouthless, poems such as \u201cOf\u201d are rich with bodily mouths, both physical and imagined. This gap between her body and the awareness of her self seems to cause her steps, her poems, to trip up. Nonetheless, her path appears to be leading to a full, embodied self-awareness. I look forward to her celebrating it in her next book.<\/p>\n