From \u201cEven the Lies:\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the lies I tell myself are sometimes true.
\nListen to the one about the quiet street:
\nsometimes that street is quiet. The children
\nare sleeping. The parents are knitting their
\nlimbs together, fast asleep, the dog asleep, the TV
\nflailing in silence. Sometimes the quiet street
\nis quiet. Sometimes your father is a man who
\nhas accomplished something.<\/p>\n
H.D.\u2019s poetry is cast with thoughtful emotion, her poems reflecting astutely on human motivations and the thoughts behind the images people from various backgrounds and in different settings try to project. H.D.\u2019s lens often zooms in uncomfortably close on the visceral details of her characters\u2019 thousand tiny heartaches.<\/p>\n
From \u201cSickbed:\u201d<\/p>\n
You are lying on your chin, eyes inked-in & empty,
\nbassclef backbone a riddled mess. Every time you move
\nyour mouth , something explodes:
\nyou\u2019ve grown giddy with comicbook
\napocalypses, apoplectic with ampersands and
\nnautilus swirls. I ask you to exit the frame,
\nsay something other than KAPOW!
\nI spin a Technicolor jumble of jailbreak blueprints.<\/p>\n
Among the deceptively loose, swirling structure of many of H.D.\u2019s poems, formally structured poetry, particularly sestinas, sneak in as a surprise at first. The innate repetition a sestina offers, however, lends itself perfectly to H.D.\u2019s looping style. Where structure does not offer the scaffold, she creates the same effects herself, through an already masterful application of internal rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and yet more repetition of words and phrases.<\/p>\n
H.D.\u2019s use of rhythm and cadence, nudged further with well-considered but discomfiting line breaks, builds to a type of cant in many of the poems, rocking us back and forth, close and then away again from the emotional rawness and bitter truths of the scenes she sets. The lolling momentum can become nearly too much at points. But the linguistic discomfort it creates just underscores the emotional discomfort elicited by the poem\u2019s content.<\/p>\n
From \u201cSafe in the Woods:\u201d<\/p>\n
Often, the most terrifying
\nevents are done before
\nyou even get a chance
\nto be terrified. Maybe ten
\nminutes or twenty years
\ndown the road of
\nfifths and spliffs in
\ntricked-out cars
\n& gaptoothed factories
\nfunerals, halfpipes
\nhalf nelsons
\ndoubledares,
\naccumulating
\nblackouts & over
\ndoses like coins,
\nthen feel it,
\na queasy wash
\ncreeping up
\nyour skin, that hard heavy
\nblush on your lungs.<\/p>\n
Rotten Perfect Mouth<\/em> does suffer from some inconsistency, but with such a clear poetic scope trained on the viscera of living, it will be worth watching what H.D. does next.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n AJ Dolman<\/strong> is a contributing editor for Arc Poetry Magazine<\/em>. Her poetry and fiction have recently appeared in Matrix Magazine<\/em>, the anthology Triangulation: Lost Voices<\/em>, On Spec and Grain<\/em>. Her second poetry chapbook, Where No One Can See You<\/em>, was published by AngelHousePress (Ottawa, 2014). She is on Twitter @ajdolman<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n