Thursday, August 11, 2022

The Genesis Machine

It had to be a skinny one this time--full day. The Genesis Machine, by Jeanne Wagner, winner of the 2016 Sow's Ear Chapbook Competition. Beautiful play of sounds in the very first poem, with its intriguing (yet perhaps repressed?) title of "Revising My Mother Who Always Undressed in the Closet"! Delicious wordplay, delicious revision. Not so repressed, after all!

Colorful. "Baptism in Blue." "Shipwreck Blue." "When I was a child, I drew as a child, crayoned strips of a horizontal sky..."

The wonderful coincidence of Mary Anning (1799-1847), encountered in a poem by Jessy Randall and the movie Ammonite, and here in the poem "Why She Wasn't Invited to Join the Geological Society of London." The whole book is such a great mix of science, language, the personal, and the perfect detail. Glad I found it in my Sealey Challenge pile!

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