Things Are Disappearing Here: Poems

by Kate Northrop

Disquieting new work from the winner of the 2001 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize.
Absence and trespass permeate these poems, in which what has just occurred--or what is about to--is as palpable and ominous as it is unrevealed. In Kate Northrop's finely-wrought verse, children have gone missing, sealed-off passages are discovered, and missing dogs emerge like visions before bounding off again. Northrop has a sixth sense for where the mundane and the uncanny pass too close for comfort--and no place more so than in the book's haunted centerpiece, a visceral rendering of a sixteenth-century Hungarian countess with certain insatiable appetites.
Gorgeous and strange, "Things Are Disappearing Here" is an imaginative tour-de-force.

Genres: Poetry

61 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2007

Reviews

[Amy Talluto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met this poet, Kate, at my artist residency in Wyoming this year. This collection is eerie and haunting, exploring themes of loneliness in the midst of crowded city apartment buildings or suburban sprawl, a longing for a connection to the natural world, and dogs who appear to break free of humanity and move forward of their own wills. There is also a terrifying poem called the countess which deals with a woman whose true history and abominable acts inspired the Dracula stories.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

PIcked it up at random at a second hand book store. Didn't regret a second of it.**

I spent most of the time thinking there was something missing in a lot of the poems. Probably I'm just broken inside.

This is lovely.

(Experience somewhat lessened by the utterly moronic annotations of the previous owner.)

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

was kind of blown away by this book...some really terrifying and haunting poems in here

[Husayn · Rating 5 out of 5]

really beautiful book

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really excellent collection. Her voice seemed quite fresh to me. Not feeling particularly verbose today, but this one is well worth checking out.

[Hallie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this collection at a book sale because I was intrigued by Northrop’s use of the page in her poetry — odd indentations and use of new paragraphs.

I waffled between three and two for this — the poems I enjoyed I greatly enjoyed, but those I didn’t I was less than lukewarm about. That said, I immensely enjoyed: Lines, Three Women, Dive, Museum Diorama, and Now over the Empty Apartment.

Would read those poems again, and would definitely like to discuss them with someone. Lines especially feels like it lends itself to conversation. But many of the others felt a bit too ethereal and What? for me.

[Jennifer]

Well, I just don't like this poetry style, though others would, I'm sure. Choppy, interruptive phrases. Just not my thing!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saw her at a reading at UWG...enjoyed her book even more afterwards.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. I liked her first collection (Back Through Interruption) better, this one seemed a little like more of the same subject, same writing, less fresh.