Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You

by Lea Graham

Do we slight desire when we say crush? No, Lea Graham seems to answer, we praise it. Less like a reservoir of recollection than a synaptic centrifuge, Hough & Helix spins and strains the blood rush of our days and words until all that remains is their compacted essential elemental charge-the poems flash and flirt on the page, surging like the "million tiny lightening storms" within us. In playfully fresh language and crisp images, this speaker collapses time and space, elegy and ode, as Latinate diction beds down with slang. A raw sexuality and emotion-think Brando and Elvis and The Venus of Willendorf-haunt the collection the way Wayne C. Booth haunts The Craft of Research. -Kathleen Graber

Genres: Poetry

70 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2011

About the author

Lea Graham is the author Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books) and the chapbook, Calendar Girls (above/ground Press). Her work is included in The City Visible: Chicago Poetry in the 21st Century and The Bedside Guide to the No Tell Motel - 2nd Floor. Currently she is an Assistant Professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Reviews

[Roxanne]

This book is excellent. I am so pleased I got to be the proofreader, because (1) I got to read it before anyone else, (2) I had to read it through multiple times, and (3) I learned so many new interesting words! Really impressed and looking forward to reading more of Graham's work.

[Sarah]

I love the thread of the "crush" running through these poems. It really creates a kind of narrative coherance. The world here is a swirl of rural drives and big city, sharp sounds, smells, and tastes. I love that so much feels unexpected and foreign, but the landscape itself is welcoming, a new way of looking at the familiar.

[Holly Raymond]

Posits kind of a new and interesting take on the poetics of desire, but ultimately didn't leave a very deep impression. I meant to reread it eventually, but it's still packed up in a box, probably sealed up with tape.

[J.A.]

Review forthcoming at PANK.