REVIEWS OF MY WORK
REVIEWS for catechesis: a postpastoral (2019)
Here we get visceral images, as if Lusby herself has dipped into the forest to collect materials, tear them apart, and graft them back together in a haunting process also at work in her poetry. . . . The same hand that grafts human and plant is at work in combining fairytale characters alongside references to movies such as The Silence of the Lambs and Alien. As we wind our way through the forest as a site of un-making and remaking, we, too, gather these pieces that flitter in and out. Collage as form is inherently iconoclastic, intentionally interactive, and literally shapeshifting. Familiar seams are severed and made to cleave along new edges, the fitting never exact, but always stimulating—a kaleidoscope of free associations. Collage, then, is a brilliant choice by Lusby to render her haunting Catechesis, where even the index reads like a collage poem. In thinking about patriarchy, and what it means for our literary predecessors, it’s powerful that Lindsay Lusby opens Catechesis: A Postpastoral with a quote by Emily Dickinson: “How odd the girl’s life looks / Behind this soft eclipse!” Catechesis totally transports the reader into a postapocalyptic world, and Dickinson’s quote brings out the horror of Lusby’s collection, casts the oddity behind the “eclipse” as ominous. This collection is aptly titled “a postpastoral,” a genre that calls into question the patriarchal conventions of pastoral poetry, a full-on confrontation that modernizes and feminizes that literary tradition for today. In Catechesis, Lusby not only subverts liturgical catechesis via creating her own transfiguration narratives and imagery, but she also offers a bad-ass tribute to Silence of the Lambs and Alien, two thrillers featuring female protagonists pitted against evil. Whether composing “traditional” poems, or crafting visual poetry, Lusby deftly creates, deconstructs, and bridges high and low culture. |
By tying the idea of catechesis to myth and fairy tale, Lusby gives the female body rights to the sacred. What I found most interesting about the evolution of girlhood (and the sacrosanct) in this book is the inevitable tie to sacrifice, and almost in ways that make the land experienced through women hallowed ground. . . . Time works in layered ways so well in this collection that it is as if at any point you are also at every point that came before and every point that will come after. As if the apocalypse isn’t a moment to be waited out, but always happening. Catechesis shows us that womanhood and fairytale are not for the faint of heart. Lusby shows us the supernatural but flips the mirror; it was our own bodies and gore all along. She whittles legend to moment and boils iconography down to shimmering memory in this deeply feminist collection. The argument Lusby seems to be making here is twofold: First, and less importantly, it's simply not enough for the poet anymore to excel at the level of the line as Lusby does so beautifully. . . . No, she also has to invent a framework of her own sort of personal tradition to boot. The lines belong to poems and poems to sections and sections to some organic whole that kaleidoscopes outward in this same kind of fearful symmetry as the Tyger, the Leviathan, in Alien. The collection is a stunning pastiche, interwoven with references to Grimm’s Fairytales, Silence of the Lambs, anatomical drawings from Grey’s Anatomy, and botanical references, all done in gorgeous, precise verse. This book studies the overwhelming horror and beauty of the natural world as well as the overwhelming unease of being a woman. |
REVIEWS for blackbird whitetail redhand (2018)
This hand-bound chapbook reminds us of the labor of self-making, as well as the violence of being forcibly unmade by another.... This brief chapbook leaves us with plenty to chew on.
—Anne Duncan at Poets House
REVIEWS for imago (2014)
This chapbook isn’t the story of what or who she’s lost, but of how she negotiates the world now they’re gone. Its strength lies in its own confidence: it doesn’t lose its nerve or try to explain itself.
—Angelina D'Roza at Sabotage Reviews
Even if one were to dismiss the conceit of Imago... the chapbook would resonate courtesy of the very elegance of the lines within. Refreshingly sparse and thoughtfully arranged, Lusby's language is what transmutes absurdity into emotion here. . . .
—Kenna O'Rourke at Cleaver Magazine
Lindsay Lusby's debut chapbook . . . is steeped in fairy tale and myth. In fact, her work has absorbed so much magic that readers could swear to have heard a version of this story before, but quickly find that this book fills what has been missing from contemporary mythology.
—Michael VanCalbergh at Weave Magazine
Interested in writing your own review?
Go to my CONTACT page and send me a message. I'd be glad to mail you a review copy of one of my chap/books: Catechesis: a postpastoral (The University of Utah Press, 2019), Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (Porkbelly Press, 2018), & Imago (dancing girl press, 2014).
Have a review to share?
You can find my full-length collection Catechesis, as well as my chapbooks Blackbird Whitetail Redhand & Imago up on Goodreads.
Go to my CONTACT page and send me a message. I'd be glad to mail you a review copy of one of my chap/books: Catechesis: a postpastoral (The University of Utah Press, 2019), Blackbird Whitetail Redhand (Porkbelly Press, 2018), & Imago (dancing girl press, 2014).
Have a review to share?
You can find my full-length collection Catechesis, as well as my chapbooks Blackbird Whitetail Redhand & Imago up on Goodreads.