feeld

Starred review from July 16, 2018
Language, artifice, and gender transition all come under scrutiny in this disarming and engrossing second collection from Charles (Safe Space). This 2017 National Poetry Series winner is composed in an idiosyncratic orthography (“a tran lik all metall is a series of sirfase in folde / wee call manie of thees foldes identitie”) and loosely centered in a “feemale depositrie room.” The collection undoes easy divisions between interior and exterior or science and nature, such as when the estrogen from a mare’s urine becomes central to an ecosystem of gender transition usually thought of only in medical terms. As Charles writes, “i cant aford not 2/ nede / a mare.” The poems’ unusual spelling, a bravura pattern somewhere between Old English and modern phonetic, can be disorienting at first. But careful phrasing and simple forms studded with slashes draw the reader into the variety of possibilities these spelling choices offer, creating a surprising, if challenging, intimacy. Even seemingly straightforward spelling variations offer rich associations, such as when “our” becomes simply “r” or when “invagination” becomes “invagynation.” Throughout, readers are subject to a careful recalibration of values, as Charles shows that a form is not important because it is static but rather because of the ways it changes, moves, and is perceived.

September 15, 2018

All poetry aims to refresh, reframe, even revolutionize language, but in an effort to find a new and better way to discuss the trans experience, Charles goes farther than most: "a tran is a thynge u leeve / wen u scape a streem / the grls putting ther saltie secks inn the aire" proclaims one poem. Elsewhere, "the trans knos / bieng at the hart off it / pumpynge the rowndes / her crop a 1000 holes inn everie grownde." The result sounds like medieval English but feels eerily modern; careful reading will untangle meaning, a task that will exhilarate some and exasperate others. Beyond the lushness, the sexual vividness, the "feemale depositrie room," the hemorage that recurs and rules, the sense of a life freshly and differently lived, there's a keen sense of political rebellion: "r reckage off trees existing tot & securelie / the wharing masckulin economyes." VERDICT This book will shape the conversation on poetry and can make other collections feel ordinary, but its challenges are best left to serious poetry lovers.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.