Something Bright, Then Holes
Poems
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Before Maggie Nelson’s name became synonymous with such genre-defying, binary-slaying writing as The Argonauts and The Art of Cruelty, this collection of poetry introduced readers to a singular voice in the making: exhilarating, fiercely vulnerable, intellectually curious, and one of a kind.
These days/the world seems to split up/into those who need to dredge/and those who shrug their shoulders/and say, It’s just something/that happened.
While Maggie Nelson refers here to a polluted urban waterway, the Gowanus Canal, these words could just as easily describe Nelson’s incisive approach to desire, heartbreak, and emotional excavation in Something Bright, Then Holes. Whether writing from the debris-strewn shores of a contaminated canal or from the hospital room of a friend, Nelson charts each emotional landscape she encounters with unparalleled precision and empathy. Since its publication in 2007, the collection has proven itself to be both a record of a singular vision in the making as well as a timeless meditation on love, loss, and―perhaps most frightening of all―freedom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nelson's newest collection continues the genre dodging of her second poetry collection, Jane: A Mystery. Narrative, sentimental and self-indulgent, this third collection risks many possible poetic pitfalls and comes through unscathed through sheer intensity of and commitment to her voice. Over three sections, Nelson employs a consistent narrator, recognizable settings, recurring characters and a few structures closely resembling plots. But it's not fiction. And though each section also has lines, stanzas, and lyric musicality, it's "poetry" only in a very loose sense. Instead, it's a stunning collection of real-world stories shadowed by the netherworld of poetry: "The hippie tells us his dog/ has terrible luck. A week ago/ it fell into a silo; yesterday/ it got electrocuted while peeing/ on a pole. We don't really know/ how to respond. The sky is amazing/tonight, full of blurry swans."
