Review by Booklist Review
Capturing a world where the whimsical observations of a child and the agonizing realities of adulthood collide, O'Rourke's poems offer a resonant exploration of relationships with both family and country. Crossing inevitably through the seasons, the collection transitions from summer pools and Popsicles to icy pines and blurred Christmas lights, all the while reverting back to a mother rebelling against a ravenous disease. Painting the portrait of a risk-taking, fast-driving, pie-baking woman who embraced life i. My Mother. the mood soon shifts to a muted portrayal of the mother lying in a bed surrounded by festive holiday decor, morphine doses, and oxygen tanks in the somber and forebodin. Still. In this stunning tribute, O'Rourke, author of Halflife (2007) and The Long Goodbye (2011), is unafraid of showcasing grief, how one swims in the pain of a loss so shattering that it's inconceivable how the grass continues to grow ( Seven Months Later ). Bonded by sorrow but never hopeless, the narrator of this powerful collection dives into a gulf of mourning and emerges renewed.--McCormick, Anni. Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Expect a big rollout for O'Rourke's second collection of verse, her first since her memoir about her mother's death from cancer, The Long Goodbye, won massive national prominence earlier this year. Most of the new poems touch on the memoir's territory, outlining and answering scenes from the poet's family life, some long ago (at a lake house; with boisterous aunts) or all too recently. O'Rourke's judgments and memories obtain the concise finality that only poetry can provide: early snow descends on "frozen fresh-bloomed flowers./ They creaked and cried,/ wild colts, being broken." Another poem remembers her mother's last days: "A week ago she climbed the stairs/ to bed, one step at a time,/ pausing on the landing,/ offering up her cheek and that old 'good night': 'I love you to death.' " Such scenes, drawn directly from memories, dominate parts one and three of this three-part book. Part two may seem less personal, or more original: a corpse speaks in "Churchyard" ("I was a person// once, I believe. I lived in a house") and two sequences, "My Life as a Subject" and "My Life as a Ruler," give voice to opposing parts of the self. O'Rourke, who writes for Slate, the New York Times Book Review, and the New Yorker, has done serious work with her serious subjects: many readers who know her from her prose should find, not consolation, but stark understanding. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This second collection (after Halflife), which closely follows O'Rourke's The Long Goodbye, a well-received memoir about her mother's death, skillfully explores the desolate country of illness and grief in a tone touched by sadness, anger, and frustration. And, perhaps, hope: "I was born/ with a spirit, like you./ I have woken, you see,/ and I wish to be/ made new." The book opens with O'Rourke's first memory, then moves from diagnosis of her mother's illness to death, its aftermath, and the realization that she is powerless unless she aims, metaphorically, to embody the country in which she is the ruler. The narrator considers global mayhem as she comes to her own restoration of spirit, but the poems aren't simply biographical; the lines are carefully shaped, the images often startling in their simplicity ("cell phones buzz like digital cicadas"). The image of ice-and the suffocating feeling of being trapped under it, with the impenetrable, translucent light above-pervades the entire collection. As O'Rourke works to find wholeness, she considers that "[h]uman emotions" might be "cliched./ But they still exist." The penultimate poem comes full circle, until finally "You can step out of/ violence and into// sky." VERDICT Essential for all readers of contemporary poetry.-Karla Huston, Wisconsin Acad. of Sciences, Arts & Letters, Madison (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
