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Doll God
Winner in the New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards, Luanne Castle's debut poetry collection, Doll God, studies traces of the spirit world in human-made and natural objects--a Japanese doll, a Palo Verde tree, a hummingbird. Her exploration leads the reader between the twin poles of nature and creations of the imagination in dolls, myth, and art.
From the first poem, which reveals the child's wish to be godlike, to the final poem, an elegy for female childhood, this collection echoes with the voices of the many in the one: a walking doll, a murderer, Snow White. Marriage, divorce, motherhood, and family losses set many of the poems in motion. The reader is transported from the lakes of Michigan to the Pacific Ocean to the Sonoran Desert.
These gripping poems take the reader on a journey through what is found, lost, or destroyed. The speaker in one poem insists, "I am still looking for angels." She has failed to find them yet keeps searching on. She knows that what is lost can be found.
From the first poem, which reveals the child's wish to be godlike, to the final poem, an elegy for female childhood, this collection echoes with the voices of the many in the one: a walking doll, a murderer, Snow White. Marriage, divorce, motherhood, and family losses set many of the poems in motion. The reader is transported from the lakes of Michigan to the Pacific Ocean to the Sonoran Desert.
These gripping poems take the reader on a journey through what is found, lost, or destroyed. The speaker in one poem insists, "I am still looking for angels." She has failed to find them yet keeps searching on. She knows that what is lost can be found.
- GenresPoetry
86 pages, Paperback
First published January 10, 2015
1 person is currently reading
404 people want to read
About the author
Luanne Castle
11 books51 followersLuanne Castle’s hybrid flash memoir, Scrap: Salvaging a Family is available for pre-order from ELJ Editions. Her story, “Garden Seasons,” was selected for Best Microfiction 2026. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, River Teeth, Your Impossible Voice, JMWW, Grist, Fourteen Hills, Verse Daily, Disappointed Housewife, Lunch Ticket, Saranac Review, Pleiades, Cleaver, Moon City, Moon Park, Anti-Heroin Chic, Bending Genres, BULL, The Mackinaw, The Ekphrastic Review, Phoebe, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Gone Lawn, Burningword, Superstition Review, One Art, Roi Fainéant, Dribble Drabble, Flash Boulevard, O:JA&L, Sheila-Na-Gig, Thimble, Antigonish Review, Longridge, Paragraph Planet, Six Sentences, Gooseberry Pie, Switch, and Ginosko. She has published four award-winning poetry collections. Her ekphrastic flash and poetry collection Hunting the Cosmos is forthcoming from Shanti Arts in fall 2026. Her mixed-media art has been showcased at Rogue Agent, Ink in Thirds, Watershed Review, Wildscape, Mad Swirl, Raw Lit, and Thimble. Luanne has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University (Certificate). Luanne lives with her husband and four cats in Arizona along a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. https://www.luannecastle.com/
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 13, 2015
Bell, Book & Candle | Doll God Review
This outstanding collection of poems may be a seemingly quick read, but the author invites the reader to partake in the various stages of life: childhood, motherhood etc. The title in itself made me wonder how it tied to the poems - I'm not kidding when I say a lot of these poems involved dolls: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yet the author also manages to capture the careful balance of human nature and well... actual nature: beauty and decay, violence and peace, the chaos and the order.
I sometimes have conflicting feelings about poetry: As much as I love it, there are some poems that are a bit too difficult to "get". Or God forbid, if the poem illicits no feeling. However Luanne Castle puts so much emotion and thought in concise words, that I am finding myself savoring every word and every line. I very much enjoyed the read.
This outstanding collection of poems may be a seemingly quick read, but the author invites the reader to partake in the various stages of life: childhood, motherhood etc. The title in itself made me wonder how it tied to the poems - I'm not kidding when I say a lot of these poems involved dolls: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yet the author also manages to capture the careful balance of human nature and well... actual nature: beauty and decay, violence and peace, the chaos and the order.
I sometimes have conflicting feelings about poetry: As much as I love it, there are some poems that are a bit too difficult to "get". Or God forbid, if the poem illicits no feeling. However Luanne Castle puts so much emotion and thought in concise words, that I am finding myself savoring every word and every line. I very much enjoyed the read.
January 28, 2015
Luanne Castle's book Doll God Is a mix of wonderful and haunting. Life affirming yet gently stirring you into questioning simple and complex themes. I am savoring it all, Bravo Ms. Castle!
January 21, 2016
I just finished my second, in-depth reading of DOLL GOD, Luanne Castle’s 2015 collection of poems, and the journey has been vivid, soul-stirring, and potent. A poet and routine reader of poetry, I was nonetheless caught off guard by the precocity of the speakers and the range of subjects. The extraordinary imagery sometimes has the effect of an ambush, and a few times I had to put the book down just to ponder and process my reaction. These poems pack a punch.
For example, “Pastoral,” features the speaker finding a doll in the mud. The phrasing should jolt the reader a little, as it is “Not a baby/face down in the mud.” After telling us about the doll, the speaker describes the sky:
An avalanche of light heals the sky,
its bruises lighten from dark gray
to slate blue to green.
The speaker thinks about pulling the doll out of the mud, but asks, “What will I do/with her? Her hair so tangled,/costume ruined . . . .” The doll is “no longer fit/for display.” Here’s the punch: “No child at hand.” Suddenly, we are pulled from the loss of a doll to the absence of children. Just as the opening line was our bait, the last line hooks us, and we are caught.
“Harpies,” a kind of sister poem to “Pastoral,” also features a baby theme, as the speaker attempts to move away from the mothers who surround her, who “intrude on our scheme.” These mothers/harpies “remember nursing their own,/tucking their wings, and see/I’m not.” At the heart of this poem is a fear of a curse, the awareness that a baby who is not being nursed for one reason or another, is doomed to a dark fate.
I’ve got to get you away from them.
All the signs were there:
You were born into grief.
Clawed toes, perched on your crib rail,
Your hook-like cries.
In four parts, the collection makes a gradual shift from poems about dolls or fairy tales to poems about family and nature, though the sections are not distinctly divided by theme or subject. All free verse, the poems are tightly constructed. Each line seems calculatingly deliberate. Some have capitalization and punctuation, while others do not. The titles, to me, are riveting: “Doll God,” “A Bone Elegy,” and “The Half-Undressed Madame Alexander Doll: A Diorama.”
The world of this collection is both borderline Gothic and uncomfortably Victorian, filled with dolls that speak, ghosts of lost pets, and memories that seem like nightmares or dreams. The poems often have unexpected word choices that provide delight for lovers of poetry. I had to look up several words, especially some of the proper nouns. I can testify that something has been changed within me after reading these. I have loved the adventure!
For example, “Pastoral,” features the speaker finding a doll in the mud. The phrasing should jolt the reader a little, as it is “Not a baby/face down in the mud.” After telling us about the doll, the speaker describes the sky:
An avalanche of light heals the sky,
its bruises lighten from dark gray
to slate blue to green.
The speaker thinks about pulling the doll out of the mud, but asks, “What will I do/with her? Her hair so tangled,/costume ruined . . . .” The doll is “no longer fit/for display.” Here’s the punch: “No child at hand.” Suddenly, we are pulled from the loss of a doll to the absence of children. Just as the opening line was our bait, the last line hooks us, and we are caught.
“Harpies,” a kind of sister poem to “Pastoral,” also features a baby theme, as the speaker attempts to move away from the mothers who surround her, who “intrude on our scheme.” These mothers/harpies “remember nursing their own,/tucking their wings, and see/I’m not.” At the heart of this poem is a fear of a curse, the awareness that a baby who is not being nursed for one reason or another, is doomed to a dark fate.
I’ve got to get you away from them.
All the signs were there:
You were born into grief.
Clawed toes, perched on your crib rail,
Your hook-like cries.
In four parts, the collection makes a gradual shift from poems about dolls or fairy tales to poems about family and nature, though the sections are not distinctly divided by theme or subject. All free verse, the poems are tightly constructed. Each line seems calculatingly deliberate. Some have capitalization and punctuation, while others do not. The titles, to me, are riveting: “Doll God,” “A Bone Elegy,” and “The Half-Undressed Madame Alexander Doll: A Diorama.”
The world of this collection is both borderline Gothic and uncomfortably Victorian, filled with dolls that speak, ghosts of lost pets, and memories that seem like nightmares or dreams. The poems often have unexpected word choices that provide delight for lovers of poetry. I had to look up several words, especially some of the proper nouns. I can testify that something has been changed within me after reading these. I have loved the adventure!
February 11, 2015
I was fascinated by her dolls. Dolls in all stages showing love, use, and decay.
January 9, 2016
In the realm of the Doll God by Luanne Castle, intention is not limited to the usual actors. Nesting dolls may choose to share Snow White's casket. The old, life-sized toddler doll, denied a little girl's ability to say "No," may force the beholder to read her history in chill, stony eyes ("See how it was for me, my history"). In "A Bone Elegy," a poem that refers to surgery on a "ravenous tumor" on the foot of the poet, a mother's voice is "a clothesline/heavy with soggy laundry" as the poet remembers a visit to the shore, where "the wind stirring up/ the waves/ goosebumped my arms." Dolls and their homes, and the objects in those homes, challenge the reader to examine the transcendent issues of love, loss, beauty, presence, absence ("because absence has its variations").
"God's toolbox begets stained glass," she says, hinting at both beauty and danger. You will "see the sky's floor crack open in one poem; in another, the sky is "so blue it hisses." Even the peace of a mother knitting in golden lamplight while listening to Nancy Wilson is transient, as a girl, "whose blood is "buzzing through/ its gridded network," well knows: "Anything could unbalance it./ An extra star in tomorrow's sky, rain/ or no rain/ could re-set it all."
I particularly loved the poem, "Prospective Ghost's Response to the First Duino Elegy," in which Castle tells the Master, "I am still looking for angels," and tells of possible encounters with ghosts who appear to her as sensations.
Ghost animals skirt my ankles.
I could be in love with them or their shadows.
Now, I sit on the ledge watching
terror as it creeps and insinuates
into everything that is life or the world...
Rilke himself might have told her that "...the wind/ full of outer space/ gnaws at our lifted faces.." or that "...many stars lined up/ hoping you'd notice." He might have told her to show the angel "how even the wail of sorrow/ can settle purely/ into its own form..." -
- but Castle knows that, as she has created art from artifacts of childhood, and from the ancient teaching-tales of humanity. As proof, one more quote, from Snow Remembers an Old Tale:
From that other screen
once upon that time
a girl crawled out at night to dance
in aisles of cornfields
from Mayday to Halloween.
In a guest post on Peeking Between the Pages, Luanne Castle recently wrote "Because I grew up with the imaginary world of dolls, I can't see a doll that doesn't inspire me for a poem Often my imagination will transform the doll into a magical portal through which to see more of the human heart."
Need I say that I loved this book? It has everything poetry can offer, from stunning imagery and metaphors to a storyline that encompasses the search for meaning and identity.
Thank you to Serena Agusto-Cox of Poetic Book Tours and Savvy Verse and Wit for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for Doll God.
"God's toolbox begets stained glass," she says, hinting at both beauty and danger. You will "see the sky's floor crack open in one poem; in another, the sky is "so blue it hisses." Even the peace of a mother knitting in golden lamplight while listening to Nancy Wilson is transient, as a girl, "whose blood is "buzzing through/ its gridded network," well knows: "Anything could unbalance it./ An extra star in tomorrow's sky, rain/ or no rain/ could re-set it all."
I particularly loved the poem, "Prospective Ghost's Response to the First Duino Elegy," in which Castle tells the Master, "I am still looking for angels," and tells of possible encounters with ghosts who appear to her as sensations.
Ghost animals skirt my ankles.
I could be in love with them or their shadows.
Now, I sit on the ledge watching
terror as it creeps and insinuates
into everything that is life or the world...
Rilke himself might have told her that "...the wind/ full of outer space/ gnaws at our lifted faces.." or that "...many stars lined up/ hoping you'd notice." He might have told her to show the angel "how even the wail of sorrow/ can settle purely/ into its own form..." -
- but Castle knows that, as she has created art from artifacts of childhood, and from the ancient teaching-tales of humanity. As proof, one more quote, from Snow Remembers an Old Tale:
From that other screen
once upon that time
a girl crawled out at night to dance
in aisles of cornfields
from Mayday to Halloween.
In a guest post on Peeking Between the Pages, Luanne Castle recently wrote "Because I grew up with the imaginary world of dolls, I can't see a doll that doesn't inspire me for a poem Often my imagination will transform the doll into a magical portal through which to see more of the human heart."
Need I say that I loved this book? It has everything poetry can offer, from stunning imagery and metaphors to a storyline that encompasses the search for meaning and identity.
Thank you to Serena Agusto-Cox of Poetic Book Tours and Savvy Verse and Wit for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for Doll God.
February 14, 2021
Doll God, Luanne Castle’s award-winning debut poetry collection, can best be described in terms of the water imagery that appears throughout. Some poems lap at the lakeshore of sensory experience, while others plumb the ocean depths of metaphor.
A prominent theme in the collection is the nature of artistic inspiration, in all its mystery, nuance, and, at times, pain.
“Between the Art and the Muse” presents the muse as a woman engaged in the old-fashioned art of making lace by hand. When the artist shows up, “he” inevitability summons the muse to “shadow behind him.” If only he would look behind him, he would “see a woman / blaze from the womb.” But of course he doesn’t.
In the title poem of the collection, the roles are reversed. Here, the artist is female, and she creates her doll god muse in her own image, but when she pulls him out of the mirror, he is male, a reluctant God “with a baby’s sour / wrinkled skin // one foot dragging / a notebook in one hand / and a pen that sighed as it moved.”
Dolls are also used throughout the collection to question whether we are created in someone else’s image, even as we seek to create ourselves. The same question holds true for our desire to control the creation of our own past.
Family relationships feature prominently, some with devastating effect, as in “Tricks”:
My drawings of my children are dimpled.
They shine like glazed paper.
This one of my son seems overpopulated,
So I will erase the brain that bedevils him
with pleated thoughts shuffling
like poker cards.
if I rub the eraser across my daughter’s heart
she’ll make her way like a straight-eyed
comet, leaving a wake of hunger.
The collection also includes poems that explore our relationship with nature, which I greatly enjoyed, “Motion” being one of the standouts:
This breeze surrounds you only
to unwrap and follow the birds.
This all happens
in one easy-to-miss instant.
Inside your skin your body
departs with them,
all of you linked together.
I particularly appreciated the poems focused on the landscape of the Southwest because I’ve never lived there. After a few rereadings, I realized that the poems express a relationship with the land that is very intimate. You can’t get it from visiting; you have to live it. From “Sonoran October”:
Midafternoon, the only movements:
cottontails dart like ballplayers
from creosote to cactus to ocotillo.
A sky so blue it hisses at my touch.
Out of many standouts in Doll God, probably the poem that resonated most with me was “When a Leaf Falls,” which begins, “Evenings like this set the girl humming / inside.” Like so many of the poems in this multifaceted collection, “When a Leaf Falls” captures one of those moments in life we don’t recognize as needing to be voiced until we read the poem which does just that. And isn’t this the reason we read poetry?
A prominent theme in the collection is the nature of artistic inspiration, in all its mystery, nuance, and, at times, pain.
“Between the Art and the Muse” presents the muse as a woman engaged in the old-fashioned art of making lace by hand. When the artist shows up, “he” inevitability summons the muse to “shadow behind him.” If only he would look behind him, he would “see a woman / blaze from the womb.” But of course he doesn’t.
In the title poem of the collection, the roles are reversed. Here, the artist is female, and she creates her doll god muse in her own image, but when she pulls him out of the mirror, he is male, a reluctant God “with a baby’s sour / wrinkled skin // one foot dragging / a notebook in one hand / and a pen that sighed as it moved.”
Dolls are also used throughout the collection to question whether we are created in someone else’s image, even as we seek to create ourselves. The same question holds true for our desire to control the creation of our own past.
Family relationships feature prominently, some with devastating effect, as in “Tricks”:
My drawings of my children are dimpled.
They shine like glazed paper.
This one of my son seems overpopulated,
So I will erase the brain that bedevils him
with pleated thoughts shuffling
like poker cards.
if I rub the eraser across my daughter’s heart
she’ll make her way like a straight-eyed
comet, leaving a wake of hunger.
The collection also includes poems that explore our relationship with nature, which I greatly enjoyed, “Motion” being one of the standouts:
This breeze surrounds you only
to unwrap and follow the birds.
This all happens
in one easy-to-miss instant.
Inside your skin your body
departs with them,
all of you linked together.
I particularly appreciated the poems focused on the landscape of the Southwest because I’ve never lived there. After a few rereadings, I realized that the poems express a relationship with the land that is very intimate. You can’t get it from visiting; you have to live it. From “Sonoran October”:
Midafternoon, the only movements:
cottontails dart like ballplayers
from creosote to cactus to ocotillo.
A sky so blue it hisses at my touch.
Out of many standouts in Doll God, probably the poem that resonated most with me was “When a Leaf Falls,” which begins, “Evenings like this set the girl humming / inside.” Like so many of the poems in this multifaceted collection, “When a Leaf Falls” captures one of those moments in life we don’t recognize as needing to be voiced until we read the poem which does just that. And isn’t this the reason we read poetry?
March 17, 2015
When I was in university, I surprised myself by taking a course on Emily Dickinson. I rarely read poetry unless it was assigned reading because I was intimidated by poetry, especially the kind that doesn’t rhyme, that tells it "slant.” I was always afraid I wouldn’t “get” the poem. Yet I took that class because of how Dickinson’s poems made me feel. To quote the poet herself: "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry." And that was how I felt after reading Doll God by Luanne Castle.
With Doll God, I sometimes felt like I was falling, that sensation of falling off a cliff just before you fall asleep. And then you jerk awake. With some poems, I felt sadness over times past that can never be recaptured. In "Calculating Loss,” I got chills at the realization, the recognition of the presence of loss. A missing chair. One less car in the garage. A half-empty jar of pebbles that, to the poet, seemed overflowing. Things missing should imply a vacuum, empty space. It made me think of how I would feel if my husband of 25 years was suddenly gone. I could imagine emptying out his closet but then never being able to fill it because it would already be too full of my loss.
Castle’s emphasis on dolls often made me think of my childhood and the horde of Barbie dolls I possessed (as well the members of her clan: Ken, Skipper, Midge). But the dolls in many of her poems span generations, even centuries. There was "Marriage Doll" and that exquisite image of the Hakate marriage doll with it's hand upraised but empty, juxtaposed to a husband, flesh-and-bone, in the same pose but not empty-handed. “Marriage Doll: 1 of 2,” the poet wrote.
What I love about poetry (and this is also why it intimidates me) is that poetry evokes feelings in me that I can’t articulate, it changes me. I didn't feel sad after reading Doll God, but I felt changed somehow. Like someone pointing out the homeless guy huddled in a doorway on a dark, cold, rainy night, and then telling me a story of the man's childhood ("Vagrant"). Like reading notes from someone's diary about a day in October in the southwest and the shift in the habits of both wild and domestic creatures ("Sonoran October"). I am changed. I know something, feel something new. The words are in the poetry so I really doesn't need to find my own.
From "Repetition":
Daylight burns brighter, scrape
deteriorates into amputation until day
is here and there is no yesterday.
From "Calculating Loss":
Every day the world subtracts from itself and nothing
is immune.
From "American Girl":
I am the wait.
Don’t wait, dear Reader. If you enjoy poetry, especially that which makes you look at your world differently, allows you to question and reflect, then pick up a copy of Doll God. I highly recommend Luanne Castle’s poetry.
With Doll God, I sometimes felt like I was falling, that sensation of falling off a cliff just before you fall asleep. And then you jerk awake. With some poems, I felt sadness over times past that can never be recaptured. In "Calculating Loss,” I got chills at the realization, the recognition of the presence of loss. A missing chair. One less car in the garage. A half-empty jar of pebbles that, to the poet, seemed overflowing. Things missing should imply a vacuum, empty space. It made me think of how I would feel if my husband of 25 years was suddenly gone. I could imagine emptying out his closet but then never being able to fill it because it would already be too full of my loss.
Castle’s emphasis on dolls often made me think of my childhood and the horde of Barbie dolls I possessed (as well the members of her clan: Ken, Skipper, Midge). But the dolls in many of her poems span generations, even centuries. There was "Marriage Doll" and that exquisite image of the Hakate marriage doll with it's hand upraised but empty, juxtaposed to a husband, flesh-and-bone, in the same pose but not empty-handed. “Marriage Doll: 1 of 2,” the poet wrote.
What I love about poetry (and this is also why it intimidates me) is that poetry evokes feelings in me that I can’t articulate, it changes me. I didn't feel sad after reading Doll God, but I felt changed somehow. Like someone pointing out the homeless guy huddled in a doorway on a dark, cold, rainy night, and then telling me a story of the man's childhood ("Vagrant"). Like reading notes from someone's diary about a day in October in the southwest and the shift in the habits of both wild and domestic creatures ("Sonoran October"). I am changed. I know something, feel something new. The words are in the poetry so I really doesn't need to find my own.
From "Repetition":
Daylight burns brighter, scrape
deteriorates into amputation until day
is here and there is no yesterday.
From "Calculating Loss":
Every day the world subtracts from itself and nothing
is immune.
From "American Girl":
I am the wait.
Don’t wait, dear Reader. If you enjoy poetry, especially that which makes you look at your world differently, allows you to question and reflect, then pick up a copy of Doll God. I highly recommend Luanne Castle’s poetry.
March 4, 2015
Originally posted at: http://www.peekingbetweenthepages.com...
Doll God by Luanne Castle is a collection of poetry that is haunting and sometimes dark and yet hopeful speaking to your heart and soul. I’m no expert on poetry as most who read my blog know but I’m opening my heart to it and learning to experience it if that makes sense and hopefully others like me will do the same. I’m thoroughly enjoying delving more and more into the beautiful world of poetry.
This collection takes us on a journey through many emotions and stages like loss, sickness, marriage, divorce, and motherhood. The poems are very vivid and bring to life an image very clearly in your mind. Most of the poems deal with dolls whether they be beautiful or in decay and take us through some point in time bringing forth in us emotions that reflect our innermost thoughts that are never spoken aloud.
Like the author I love dolls. I used to collect porcelain ones and I had my walking doll that I idolized when I was younger. As I read through these poems I kept reflecting and imagining the lives of my old dolls and I think that’s what I liked so much about this collection. As a child your dolls always have these lives – sometimes better than yours, sometimes worse – but through our imagination we could go anywhere with them.
The poetry of Doll God speaks to the heart whether it be through dolls or the human condition. It makes you feel emotion whether good or bad and I think that’s what poetry is about. I think it’s important as well that a poem speaks to everyone differently. While I may not always get the meaning the author was trying to convey I do feel the emotions that are portrayed that lead me to either like a piece or not like it. For me, Luanne Castle’s collection spoke to me emotionally and that’s what this newbie looks for when reading poetry!
To end I’d like to share a favorite poem with all of you…
Calculating Loss
Birds have the number sense
to know when an egg in a nest
of five goes missing.
If you have four chairs in the kitchen you don’t have to count
to know
one has been taken away,
to realize one car
cools in the double garage.
Every day the world subtracts from itself and nothing is immune.
Not these pebbles from our walks along the lakeshore: pebbles you collected
in this jar which
remains half full,
though for some reason I think of it as overflowing.
(from Doll God by Luanne Castle)
Doll God by Luanne Castle is a collection of poetry that is haunting and sometimes dark and yet hopeful speaking to your heart and soul. I’m no expert on poetry as most who read my blog know but I’m opening my heart to it and learning to experience it if that makes sense and hopefully others like me will do the same. I’m thoroughly enjoying delving more and more into the beautiful world of poetry.
This collection takes us on a journey through many emotions and stages like loss, sickness, marriage, divorce, and motherhood. The poems are very vivid and bring to life an image very clearly in your mind. Most of the poems deal with dolls whether they be beautiful or in decay and take us through some point in time bringing forth in us emotions that reflect our innermost thoughts that are never spoken aloud.
Like the author I love dolls. I used to collect porcelain ones and I had my walking doll that I idolized when I was younger. As I read through these poems I kept reflecting and imagining the lives of my old dolls and I think that’s what I liked so much about this collection. As a child your dolls always have these lives – sometimes better than yours, sometimes worse – but through our imagination we could go anywhere with them.
The poetry of Doll God speaks to the heart whether it be through dolls or the human condition. It makes you feel emotion whether good or bad and I think that’s what poetry is about. I think it’s important as well that a poem speaks to everyone differently. While I may not always get the meaning the author was trying to convey I do feel the emotions that are portrayed that lead me to either like a piece or not like it. For me, Luanne Castle’s collection spoke to me emotionally and that’s what this newbie looks for when reading poetry!
To end I’d like to share a favorite poem with all of you…
Calculating Loss
Birds have the number sense
to know when an egg in a nest
of five goes missing.
If you have four chairs in the kitchen you don’t have to count
to know
one has been taken away,
to realize one car
cools in the double garage.
Every day the world subtracts from itself and nothing is immune.
Not these pebbles from our walks along the lakeshore: pebbles you collected
in this jar which
remains half full,
though for some reason I think of it as overflowing.
(from Doll God by Luanne Castle)
February 19, 2015
Reading--rather-devouring this book by Luanne Castle. The images and what they set in motion inspire a visceral, ground-level plunge into the secrets of things and how things change when left to the elements or are held up to broken or defective mirrors.
Castle's Doll God world is one where the imperfect imagination celebrates its own wonderful and terrifying brokenness in the echoes it finds in motherhood, fertility, destruction, secrets, the making of things, and ultimately in the human desire to keep reaching from the muck toward the light. In this sense-- the images and how dolls appear continuously point backward and forward to these themes. The found doll in the mud. The doll buggy made in a munitions factory. The too American American Girl Doll. The mistreated child in ruffles dressed like her doll. The dolls dragged to and fro by their hair. The things mothers make for their children. And overall, what God makes and why it all should matter.
These poems burst with images that richochet long after you've moved to another poem. I'm so thrilled to be part of this literary journey as Doll God begs me to sit and puzzle together the kind of partial meanings that lure me back in hopes of finding the key to an ever-elusive wholeness. The beauty of this poetry collection is in discovering it's the search-- not the wholeness-- that keeps us turning the pages and holding the book closer to the light.
Castle has given the reader a visceral experience of what it is to be aware, vigilant and searching despite, the bombardment of an imperfect world.
Thank you for an amazing read Luanne. I'm hooked!
Castle's Doll God world is one where the imperfect imagination celebrates its own wonderful and terrifying brokenness in the echoes it finds in motherhood, fertility, destruction, secrets, the making of things, and ultimately in the human desire to keep reaching from the muck toward the light. In this sense-- the images and how dolls appear continuously point backward and forward to these themes. The found doll in the mud. The doll buggy made in a munitions factory. The too American American Girl Doll. The mistreated child in ruffles dressed like her doll. The dolls dragged to and fro by their hair. The things mothers make for their children. And overall, what God makes and why it all should matter.
These poems burst with images that richochet long after you've moved to another poem. I'm so thrilled to be part of this literary journey as Doll God begs me to sit and puzzle together the kind of partial meanings that lure me back in hopes of finding the key to an ever-elusive wholeness. The beauty of this poetry collection is in discovering it's the search-- not the wholeness-- that keeps us turning the pages and holding the book closer to the light.
Castle has given the reader a visceral experience of what it is to be aware, vigilant and searching despite, the bombardment of an imperfect world.
Thank you for an amazing read Luanne. I'm hooked!
May 17, 2015
Serena Agusto-Cox of Savvy Verse & Wit has started promoting poetry at POETIC BOOK TOURS. The author sent me a copy of the book for review.
it began
a mirror for good
the child's round nose
seed-pearl teeth
doubled by the bundle
she cradled in her
arms, then hung
by one of its
limbs or curved belly...
~~~Prototype, Doll God by Luanne Castle
Title: Doll God
Author: Luanne Castle
ISBN: 978-0692334881
Publisher: Aldrich Press/2015
Pages: 86
With beautiful imagery, softness and at times gut wrenching, this debut collection of poetry touches the heart.
At times, I paused and savored the poems. There is violence, yet redemption. There is that rawness that hits the guts, yet childlike.
I liked the second poem, From Both Sides, which chipped the mountain, the mighty mountain which always stands tall....
Doll Gods are so endearing, so lovable. There is whole gamut of emotions imbued in those. The poems are reflective, mirror our inner most thoughts and have a sense of purpose...
A few poems also comment on the scientific reality of life, yet the metaphysical and spirituality is never far away...
Man made and natural objects get juxtaposed here, blended so very seamlessly....
I am a poet myself. I really enjoyed reading the collection and look forward to more of her work...
it began
a mirror for good
the child's round nose
seed-pearl teeth
doubled by the bundle
she cradled in her
arms, then hung
by one of its
limbs or curved belly...
~~~Prototype, Doll God by Luanne Castle
Title: Doll God
Author: Luanne Castle
ISBN: 978-0692334881
Publisher: Aldrich Press/2015
Pages: 86
With beautiful imagery, softness and at times gut wrenching, this debut collection of poetry touches the heart.
At times, I paused and savored the poems. There is violence, yet redemption. There is that rawness that hits the guts, yet childlike.
I liked the second poem, From Both Sides, which chipped the mountain, the mighty mountain which always stands tall....
Doll Gods are so endearing, so lovable. There is whole gamut of emotions imbued in those. The poems are reflective, mirror our inner most thoughts and have a sense of purpose...
A few poems also comment on the scientific reality of life, yet the metaphysical and spirituality is never far away...
Man made and natural objects get juxtaposed here, blended so very seamlessly....
I am a poet myself. I really enjoyed reading the collection and look forward to more of her work...
February 6, 2015
The title "Doll God" instantly made me wonder who or what the "god" is: a doll, a child, a parent, a poet, a deity, nature? Having read this superb collection, I suspect the answer is all of the above and more. Author Luanne Castle keeps the title's tacit promise by including many poems about dolls--pretty dolls or dolls that are devilish or decaying. But she ranges far beyond dolls into electric seconds between humans or between humans and nature. Castle excels at depicting such moments--beauty before rot, peace before violence, instability before who knows what. Rare is the poet who presses so much sensation, thought, feeling, and mystery into such succinct word packets. I give "Doll God" my highest recommendation. Read and enjoy--and read again. Keep unpacking these poems.
June 20, 2015
I won this amazing book of poems on Goodreads. I was drawn into this collection of works from the first word. I felt so many things as I read this collection. It is one that I will keep on my night stand for many years to come, so that I can dip in and enjoy these beautiful words and feelings again and again. I highly recommend this book.
February 22, 2015
This book is a lovely collection of poems, like small gems, evoking the distant past and the not-so-distant. Both nostalgic and current, Luanne Castle's voice is strong as she weaves her truth. I was moved to remember childhood days and toys long forgotten and discarded.
April 21, 2016
It was with some trepidation that I began reading Luanne Castle’s collection of poetry. I usually read history and feared I wouldn’t connect with a modern poet, but I was wrong.
Doll God is a lyrical history of life—or many lives. The stories Castle tells us are at once poignantly personal and profoundly universal. A quiet moment with an estranged husband, wistful memories of summers spent with a childhood friend and the sad history of a man’s descent into vagrancy and invisibility; these stories cut to the core of human feeling and being.
Throughout I felt the poet’s love and compassion for flawed humanity and felt my own heart breaking for people Castle has brought to life in her poetry. Each poem is a glimpse, a ray of light shining on tiny moments of life that often go unexamined.
Luanne Castle’s poetry is so beautifully written I often found myself caught between experiencing life through the poet’s eyes and admiring the wonderful way in which the poems were constructed. Here is a collection of poems to savor more than once! They remind me of how I feel when reading Whitman’s poetry—elevated and in love with humanity no matter how imperfect.
Doll God is a lyrical history of life—or many lives. The stories Castle tells us are at once poignantly personal and profoundly universal. A quiet moment with an estranged husband, wistful memories of summers spent with a childhood friend and the sad history of a man’s descent into vagrancy and invisibility; these stories cut to the core of human feeling and being.
Throughout I felt the poet’s love and compassion for flawed humanity and felt my own heart breaking for people Castle has brought to life in her poetry. Each poem is a glimpse, a ray of light shining on tiny moments of life that often go unexamined.
Luanne Castle’s poetry is so beautifully written I often found myself caught between experiencing life through the poet’s eyes and admiring the wonderful way in which the poems were constructed. Here is a collection of poems to savor more than once! They remind me of how I feel when reading Whitman’s poetry—elevated and in love with humanity no matter how imperfect.
January 2, 2021
This delightful collection of emotions and images has dolls woven throughout. The variety took me to unfamiliar experiences with the ocean and with the southwest. I especially enjoyed Sonoran October. Also two poems together mentioning the "debris of another generation" and the "sediment of memory." Beautifully wrought.
February 21, 2015
Although most reviewers have been pleased with this little volume, I only found a few poems that spoke to me. Again, it is a matter of taste, just like in novels. Or perhaps, I just wasn't in the right mood.
Since all the reviews I read were 4-5 stars, I recommend that you read the poems yourself. The fact that they did not resonate with me is of little importance--they may speak to you.
The Doll God Book Tour
Poetry. 2015. 86 pages.
Since all the reviews I read were 4-5 stars, I recommend that you read the poems yourself. The fact that they did not resonate with me is of little importance--they may speak to you.
The Doll God Book Tour
Poetry. 2015. 86 pages.
October 9, 2015
I received this book for free as part of a first reads promotion
December 14, 2022
Unusual and thought-provoking!
I didn’t know what to expect in this book, but was drawn to it by the title and cover. Castle uses Doll God’s poetry to evoke thoughtful reflection in the reader as she stirs up her own memories of childhood and life. ~ Bette A. Stevens, author of AMAZING MATILDA (Award-winning children’s book) and other books for children and adults of all ages).
I didn’t know what to expect in this book, but was drawn to it by the title and cover. Castle uses Doll God’s poetry to evoke thoughtful reflection in the reader as she stirs up her own memories of childhood and life. ~ Bette A. Stevens, author of AMAZING MATILDA (Award-winning children’s book) and other books for children and adults of all ages).
March 8, 2018
A wonderful collection of poems centered around dolls--but so much deeper than that.
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