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Library | Item Barcode | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Niagara Falls Public Library | 34305005557387 | 811.6 RUSS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Poetry. Women's Studies. WHAT'S HANGING ON THE HUSH wrestles with concerns that range from race, gender and sexuality to loneliness, madness and grief, and nothing escapes questioning, least of all the position of the poet herself. With humor and slightly off-kilter introspection, these poems disrupt even their own speaking, frequently singing "I." Collectively, they demonstrate the underlying restlessness of a subjectivity never quite at ease, like the solitary cats who meander across these pages and disappear only to turn up where they are least expected. Operating in a range of modes, from tight lyrics to sprawling, fragmented texts to language experiments, WHAT'S HANGING ON THE HUSH is a tightly constructed interrogation of construction itself. At its heart is an exploration of solitude and a feminist's existential reckoning--the struggle of being/making in the world.
Reviews (1)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Russell debuts with a collection of sardonic splendor, subversive enlightenment, and remarkable observation about mental illness, ignorance, and the minute interactions that reveal the subtleties of human nature. Russell's experimental and provocative style beautifully amalgamates traditionally non-poetic structures, arranging it all in a sort of controlled chaos. Among her checklists, definitions, brief narratives, and streams of consciousness, her metafictional pieces warrant the most praise. In "Narrative Arc" she follows a series of lines about "Derrida's cat" with a space and a single descriptive term: "Derrida's cat looked at Derrida naked" is labeled action, "Derrida's cat's retinas contracted in the light" is process, and so on. Russell challenges societal norms when her speaker asks, "Do I wear my skin like a costume or a uniform?" Similarly, she confronts how social expectations can coerce a person into a performative well-being and how ignorance can invalidate one's emotional complexities, deeming them acts of drama or whitewashing them as homologous states that are experienced without variation among people society deems unstable. What's most striking is her skill at deriving rich meaning from otherwise unremarkable happenstance, as when she comments on an emailed typo: "it came out 'dsiappear,'/ the 'i' already shifting, a loose hair." Russell's wry and lush poetics open up into an encyclopedia of social critique and whimsical disarray. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.