Brock-Broido

[rm]

My copy of Lucie Brock-Broido's A Hunger arrived today. This is her first book of poems, and it shows. These are young poems, well late-20s poems, full of a certain sort of sly.

And some of them are brilliant.

This is a segment from Domestic Mysticism:

This work of mine, the kind of work which takes no arms to do,
Is least noble of all. It's peopled by Wizards, the Forlorn,
The Awkward, the Blinkers, the Spoon-Fingered, Agnostic Lispers,
Stutterers of Prayer, the Flatulent, the Closet Weepers,
The Charlatans. I am one of those. In January, the month the owls
Nest in, I am a witness & a small thing altogether. The Kingdom
of Ingratitude. Kingdom of Lies. Kingdom of How Dare I.