Each Tree Could Hold a Noose Or a House
Puro Nina
The personal is political for Puro, too: The anguish and drama in this capacious first volume arise both without and within. It’s a tumultuous, unguarded collection of free verse in many contours, modes and sizes, some nearly baroque in their deep-delving obscurity, some plainly confessional, devoted to troubles shared by many women and girls: “If I had gone to prom or college instead of hospitals, if I’d had family or mentors, would I have become a queer poet?” Eating disorders and exurban isolation add to the pain in the voices that Puro shapes, in which “love is a transactional convolution. Breath is cheap.” Her poems tend to end up dramatic, breathtaking, alive with an almost self-immolating energy inseparable from youth, “hordes of kids riding bareback / off cliffs with satin ribbons in their hair & the horses’ manes.” Puro also shows her invention in her long titles: “How to Arrest Time by Crushing Rust to Powder”; “elegy with five-finger discount on smallpox blanket.” Some poems organize themselves around extended sentences and new metaphors for heartbreak or outrage, exploring the rough country located halfway between Dylan Thomas and Tori Amos. Others exhaust themselves in page-long lists or pinch themselves into tiny lines. For all her attention to the hot, colorful self, Puro (now a social worker in Brooklyn) understands the social and structural elements — rigid gender roles, geographic isolation, economic wrongs — that brought her troubled figures to this pass: “The dead girls miss us, but not much.
They miss neon afghans. They do not miss the police.” –Stephanie Burt, New York Times
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Details
| ISBN | 9781936970544 |
| Genre | Poetry; Award Winner |
| Publication Date | 2018 |
| Publisher | First Book |
| Format | Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 127 |
| Notes | Lambda Literary Award Winner, Lesbian Poetry |
| LoC Classification | PS3616.U787 .A6 2018 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | Great |
| Subject | Poetry |
| BookID | 3374 |
