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The J Horoscope: Poems
Look. A woman is writing on parchment, a scroll.* We don't know her name. Her king, Solomon, has died, and the whole country's going to hell under the new king, Rehoboam. The year is 937 BCE. Banished from the ring of political power, she grounds herself by collecting the kingdom's ancient stories. Of the four writers in Genesis, J is the one who delivers the earthly creatures--Noah, Joseph, Jacob, Rachel, et al--and, to paraphrase Pogo, they is us. Her cast of characters includes the god Yahweh (or Jahweh) who can appear in various guises. She's named J for her intense interest in Yahweh's character.
100 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 28, 2024
I'm not really a big poetry person, but I found this book a couple of years ago and thought it looked really interesting. I read a couple of poems from it, but never the whole thing. Then last week, one of my professors told us to read a book of poetry and review it for an assignment while she was out of town. I was unable to find the one she recommended for me based on my appreciation for Shelley Puhak (she suggested I read Alexandra Teague's book about the Winchester House, which I will definitely look for), and after giving up on a couple I got from the library, I went back to my own shelf to read the entirety of The J Horoscope, which I finished in one evening.
And it was really good! Again, I'm not a huge poetry person so I can't speak to the quality of the line breaks, or whatever, but Chmielarz's sometimes-dreamy, sometimes-sarcastic, recountings of stories from the Book of Genesis from the point of view of the mysterious, probably female scholar J, is super compelling and readable. She reimagines the fall of Sodom and Gomorah from Lot's wife's point of view as a suburban woman unwilling to give up her house because her husband screwed up. She writes about the romance of Rachel and Jacob, and about Noah's wife on the arc. She writes a multi-page saga about Joseph of dreams and fancy coats fame. She posits that the voice telling Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac was actually Sarah. And in many of the poems she imagines Yahweh, and what He thinks of all this.
And it was great. I was super into all the poems, especially since at the end of the book she provided a helpful guide of how The Book of J inspired each of them. Now I have a better idea of what I'm looking for in poetry: specifically, another form of storytelling, or in this case story re-telling. Chmielarz essentially does for Genesis what Puhak does for relatives of 20th century dictators and other historical figures in "Stalin in Aruba"--she puts the reader in their head, in verse. It's really compelling, and I highly recommend that kind of poetry.
And it was really good! Again, I'm not a huge poetry person so I can't speak to the quality of the line breaks, or whatever, but Chmielarz's sometimes-dreamy, sometimes-sarcastic, recountings of stories from the Book of Genesis from the point of view of the mysterious, probably female scholar J, is super compelling and readable. She reimagines the fall of Sodom and Gomorah from Lot's wife's point of view as a suburban woman unwilling to give up her house because her husband screwed up. She writes about the romance of Rachel and Jacob, and about Noah's wife on the arc. She writes a multi-page saga about Joseph of dreams and fancy coats fame. She posits that the voice telling Abraham not to sacrifice Isaac was actually Sarah. And in many of the poems she imagines Yahweh, and what He thinks of all this.
And it was great. I was super into all the poems, especially since at the end of the book she provided a helpful guide of how The Book of J inspired each of them. Now I have a better idea of what I'm looking for in poetry: specifically, another form of storytelling, or in this case story re-telling. Chmielarz essentially does for Genesis what Puhak does for relatives of 20th century dictators and other historical figures in "Stalin in Aruba"--she puts the reader in their head, in verse. It's really compelling, and I highly recommend that kind of poetry.
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May 14, 2023Standouts for me:
"Miss Yahweh in P. S. #1"
"Yahweh the Stork re A Human Condition"
"Miss Yahweh in P. S. #1"
"Yahweh the Stork re A Human Condition"
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews