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White Sustenance
“Kat Snider Blackbird gives us all these in her intense and passionate poems. She is a woman―and Woman―in love, in lust, and deeply in life. In her work, women will see themselves on all levels of being and men will at last be allowed to penetrate the mysteries of the women they love.”―Grace Butcher
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
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March 30, 2009
Kat Snider Blackbird, White Sustenance (Kent State University Press, 1994)
One of the things I most hate to do, as a reviewer, is give a lukewarm review to anything published by Wick, Kent State's fantastic chapbook series. The Wick Poetry Series has released some phenomenal books over the years, and in my experience, it's possible to pick up a Wick book at random and come up with a winner. Every once in a while, though, there's one that leaves me cold, and White Sustenance is one of those.
Not that it's all bad. When Blackbird is on her game, the poems in this book shine as brightly as anything one would normally expect to find in the world of Wick:
“Two years ago I saw a duck killed on the highway,
his mate running wild from the dead body
to the road's edge, back and forth,
hysterical in smears of headlights
to the ruined wings, the severed neck.
They may have needed to cross the road
on their way home.
Now, she did not know how she would sleep,
or where. She did not believe,
save for the stinging smell of blood,
any of this could be real.”
(“The Storm”)
Much of the book, however, gets tangled up in its own need to send some sort of message, rather than letting the images tell the tale (as they do so well in that excerpt above); Blackbird lapses too often into not trusting the images and pushing the message onto the reader. “I am addicted to love,/ and I love you.” (“Petty Addictions”) is writing that would be barely acceptable in a Melody Beattie revenue-generator.
Still, it is worth wading through the mundane here to get to the good, and if you're collecting Wick (as we all should be), this one's obviously a must. ***
One of the things I most hate to do, as a reviewer, is give a lukewarm review to anything published by Wick, Kent State's fantastic chapbook series. The Wick Poetry Series has released some phenomenal books over the years, and in my experience, it's possible to pick up a Wick book at random and come up with a winner. Every once in a while, though, there's one that leaves me cold, and White Sustenance is one of those.
Not that it's all bad. When Blackbird is on her game, the poems in this book shine as brightly as anything one would normally expect to find in the world of Wick:
“Two years ago I saw a duck killed on the highway,
his mate running wild from the dead body
to the road's edge, back and forth,
hysterical in smears of headlights
to the ruined wings, the severed neck.
They may have needed to cross the road
on their way home.
Now, she did not know how she would sleep,
or where. She did not believe,
save for the stinging smell of blood,
any of this could be real.”
(“The Storm”)
Much of the book, however, gets tangled up in its own need to send some sort of message, rather than letting the images tell the tale (as they do so well in that excerpt above); Blackbird lapses too often into not trusting the images and pushing the message onto the reader. “I am addicted to love,/ and I love you.” (“Petty Addictions”) is writing that would be barely acceptable in a Melody Beattie revenue-generator.
Still, it is worth wading through the mundane here to get to the good, and if you're collecting Wick (as we all should be), this one's obviously a must. ***
Displaying 1 of 1 review