Girl-King (Akron Series in Poetry

by Brittany Cavallaro

The poems in Brittany Cavallaro’s Girl-King are whispered from behind a series of masks, those of victim and aggressor, nineteenth-century madame and reluctant magician’s girl, of truck-stop Persephone and frustrated Tudor scholar. This “expanse of girls, expanding still” chase each other through history, disappearing in an Illinois cornfield only to re-emerge on the dissection table of a Scottish artist-anatomist. But these poems are not just interested in historical they peer, too, at the past’s marginalia, at its “blank pages” as well as its “scrawls and dashes.” Always, they return to “the dark, indelicate question” of power and sexuality, of who can rule the “city where no one is from.” These girls search for the connection between “alive and will stay that way,” between each dying star and the emptiness that can collapse everything.

Genres: Poetry, Historical Fiction, Historical

64 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2015

About the author

Brittany Cavallaro is a poet, fiction writer, and old school Sherlockian. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlotte Holmes novels from HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Books, including A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE, THE LAST OF AUGUST, THE CASE FOR JAMIE, and A QUESTION OF HOLMES. She's also the author of the poetry collections GIRL-KING and UNHISTORICAL (University of Akron) and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. She earned her BA in literature from Middlebury College and her MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Michigan with her husband, cat, dog, and collection of deerstalker caps.

Reviews

[Brittney Andrews (beabookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superstition

The clouds move like scissors subtracting the sky.
In the attic I shear my wedding dress to my knees.

I repeat your name until I forget mine,
push my hands through the mirror at midnight.

And Brittney Brittany—you are no magician's girl so why
do you let him saw through all your articulate ribs.

Notes:

Girl-King (i): in medieval England, during the Twelfth Night festival (which ended on All Hallows Eve), a Lord of Misrule was elected during a feast. Whoever found a bean baked into his cake would be this "king" until midnight; whoever found a pea would be his queen.

This historically inspired collection of poetry is magical, brutal, atmospheric and bone-chilling; I was left completely satisfied but greedily ravenous for more.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on Cavallaro's short bio here on GR, I see that she considers herself a "Sherlockian" and has actually written a YA series in that theme. In Girl-King, she sets the majority of poems in this same dark and shadowed space, gothic and macabre, "cabinet of curiosity" style. While I too like this period, the poetry didn't always work for me - your mileage may vary.

Highlight section for me was The Resurrectionists and the various cadavers and their imagined lives. At least I think that was what was happening...

[nia · Rating 5 out of 5]

brittany cavallaro's talent to render me speechless genuinely blows my mind.

"Says mother, I am not the last one. Two girls in your womb meant two men's sweat in your bed. So. You hid me in the ash tree. Gave my other a name"
— the twins allegations from olden times is just insane. the way the story is woven made me pause and read twice before realising how dark it must've been when such beliefs persisted.

also, the Hare & Burke resurrectionist inspirations had me internally screaming because if there's anything i've learnt from my Andrew Lane 'Young Sherlock' days, it's that late 19th century lore is absolutely bizarre and i know way too many random facts about it

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exquisitely wrought group of poems, each very precisely tuned. I stumbled a little in several sections with references/metaphor - The Ressurectionists section is the most accessible - but was definitely rewarded by the “work” of reading. (I’d advise revisiting Berryman’s Dream Songs when reading the Mirror Songs section)

[Linsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful language. Gorgeous cover. I’m not sure if the poems fit together all that well.

My favorite was Bildungsroman.

[Madeline Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vague, dim, and dismal, I didn't particularly enjoy reading this collection of poetry for my Writing Poetry class at North Central College. I struggled to find meaning within the poems and couldn't quite grasp on to anything besides dark images and trauma. I would like to think that I'm just missing a well-buried theme, but I could not enjoy these poems no matter how deep I *tried* to dig into them.

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Three Stars

Honestly, this collection just didn't do it for me. For whatever reason, I didn't connect with the poems, though I found The Resurrectionists to be an interesting twist on Victorian Scotland and the body snatching and nursery rhymes that came out of it.

[Melody]

I am trying to get more info poetry. I love this author, and I loved the premise of this collection. The writing was exquisite. But also I think I only understood a fraction of what was going on here. This is definitely one I will want to revisit.

[LuluRockets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly magical <3

[Morgan]

Ö

[Marlies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay I didn't understand some of these so maybe I need a slow slow reread but watch me tearing up through half of the poems and wanting to throw hands with some resurrectionists

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Empowering Poetic Stars

I have always had a strange relationship with poetry, where it finds me after multiple readings and each time I glean a deeper message from the carefully arranged words. With Brittany Cavallaro's Girl-King, I did require a second and in some cases third reading, but the power and developing narrative across the entire collection kept me enraptured. An early step in my quest to read more poetry, and personally it was a beautifully symbolic step in the right direction.

[Heather Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first dive into poetry comes with a surprising unpopular opinion. Though the author did have some beautifully written lines, the poetry did not seem to stay consistent. The surrounding lines came across as scattered thoughts and the overall theme became lost.