Dead space brute howl12/24/2023 We don’t have to look much further than the title she has chosen in order to realize that. As Cherrié Moraga tells us in one of Brute’s section epigraphs, “To assess the damage is a dangerous act.” But it’s an act so many of us undertake, especially in the aftermath of loss. And like the small hand shown reaching into that wolf’s mouth, what I was reaching towards-even captivated by-was the experience of pain. Like the wolf depicted in the collection’s cover illustration, my mouth was open in anticipation. Sometimes a person reads hungrily-less out of curiosity and more out of need. Winner of the Walt Whitman Award, Brute is described by prize judge Joy Harjo as “one long, elegiac howl for the end of a relationship.” And because elegies turn our attention so closely to what is gone, it was the worst type of poetry for me to turn toward: a literary version of wallowing.Įnter into my morbid landscape Emily Skaja’s debut collection, Brute. Since I was already spending most of my time thinking about loss, elegy became the ideal poem-a lament for the dead and a way of commemorating what isn’t coming back. I became fixated on elegies earlier this year after being left by a man I loved.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |