POETRY

The Dream of Reason

by Jenny George
Copper Canyon. Apr. 2018. 72p. ISBN 9781556595196. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9781619321847. POETRY
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"Everything is restored," says an early poem in this debut from George, winner of the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize, but a creeping sense of unease upends the collection. The bat crawling across the porch "like a goblin" is dying, never mind the accompanying image of being enfolded in someone's arms; something unseen stirs in the grass; and the disturbing sense of being watched on a starlit night portends violence—a word that resurfaces throughout the collection ("I take my violence out over the field"). That's not surprising, as the title hints at an unsettling Goya print, and it's interesting to see how such tactile poems succeed at suggesting the uncertain beyond, in a world where "we know a thing by its periphery."
VERDICT Eerie and approachable; solid work from a rising poet.
Reviewed by Barbara Hoffert , May 15, 2018
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