Customer Reviews

Compulsions of Silk Worms and Bees: Poems (Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Award)

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I am a writer and reader of poetry who usually stays away from poems about poetry or the writing of it, but Julianna Baggott's new collection resonates beyond the sometimes self-involved world of poetry. It ventures into moments of human life and creates vignettes of intimacy, so much so that her vehicle of using the craft of writing as a spring board fades, and true human emotion is unearthed. Her language has a clarity and vibrancy, and it is from there that her images stay hinged in the mind: "...my mother shining with sweat, not so much/ the moth-tinging bulb above her head,/ but the poem, in the road/ hissing like a rearing hood-flared cobra, the old sibilant iron,/ its red glowing eye."

Her poetry is meaningful and quite deep. I had to read for class but I truly did enjoy it.

After devouring 'Lizzie Borden in Love', also by JB, I couldn't wait to get my hands on another collection. I was more than a bit disappointed by the style and content of the poems, especially since the book had such a great title (I'm a sucker for words). The poems are largely titled as questions and the 'poem' is the answer to the question. I am a writer and I didn't find the poems compelling... I don't know how non-writers will be able to connect. The poems are in plain language (as were the poems in the book I previously purchased) but they are largely uninspiring and unimaginative. Perhaps it is not fair to compare these poems to the stellar work in the "lizzie borden" collection but these poems simply do not shine out. Simply, I found this collection boring. It will go with the books in my bookshelf and not in the dog-eared, much pawed stack by my bed.