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Doll God

Luanne Castle (Goodreads Author)

4.66 · Rating details · 29 ratings · 19 reviews

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 reveal ...more

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Paperback, 86 pages

Published January 10th 2015 by Aldrich Press

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Mar 12, 2015 SoWrongItsRANDI {Bell, Book & Candle} rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry

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 ...more

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Jan 27, 2015 Corinne Trowbridge rated it it was amazing

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!
...more

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Jan 20, 2016 Carla McGill rated it it was amazing

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 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! ...more

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Feb 11, 2015 Harvee rated it really liked it

I was fascinated by her dolls. Dolls in all stages showing love, use, and decay.

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Feb 17, 2015 Melanie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry

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 re 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. ...more

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Feb 14, 2021 Elizabeth Gauffreau rated it it was amazing

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 arti ...more

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Mar 17, 2015 Marie rated it it was amazing

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 read 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. ...more

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Mar 03, 2015 Darlene rated it really liked it

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 ...more

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Feb 19, 2015 Renee Rivers rated it it was amazing

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 desir ...more

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Feb 10, 2015 gautami rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015-feb, 2015-gautami, 2015-read, 2015-reading-challenge, 2015-poetry, poetry-book

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 ...more

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Feb 06, 2015 Wilma rated it it was amazing

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 ...more

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Jun 07, 2015 Emily Boivin rated it it was amazing

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.

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Jan 22, 2015 Barbara rated it it was amazing

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. ...more

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Jan 16, 2015 Serena rated it really liked it

http://savvyverseandwit.com/2015/03/d... ...more

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Apr 21, 2016 Adrienne Morris rated it it was amazing

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 ...more

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Jan 02, 2021 Joy Kidney rated it it was amazing

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. ...more

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Feb 21, 2015 Jen rated it liked it

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. ...more

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Jun 08, 2015 Staci Suhy rated it it was ok

Shelves: first-reads

I received this book for free as part of a first reads promotion

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Aug 09, 2017 Suanne rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poetry

A wonderful collection of poems centered around dolls--but so much deeper than that.

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Jackie Dinnis rated it it was amazing
Jan 07, 2016

Apr 15, 2015 Luanne Castle rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

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About Luanne Castle

Luanne Castle

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Luanne Castle's Kin Types (Finishing Line Press), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Her first collection of poetry, Doll God, winner of the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Poetry, was published by Aldrich Press. Luanne has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creati ...more