Poet and novelist Julianna Baggott’s third collection of poems, Compulsions of Silkworms & Bees, won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Award from Pleiades Press in Missouri. It is easy to see why judges selected this collection – it is filled with memorable poems that appeal to both poets and non-poets alike. These are witty, well-polished poems. Baggott’s is a unique voice standing out among the sameness of many contemporary poems that are “lovely” or “nice” when you read them, but not very memorable once you’ve set the book down.
With titles like “Poetry Punishes You for Your Absence,” “An Apologia for Using Words in Poetry,” and “Talking Dirty: The Marketing of Poetry” you know what you’re in for – a cheeky and irreverent speaker. For example, these lines from “The Orphan Poem”:
I gave it up because I was too young,
too wild, unsuited to tending to its needs,
and it was needy, squalling, and I was tender,
needy myself. And so there was a basket,
and a gentle sea, or maybe there was a basket
and a bell and a darkened doorstep.
Nearly all of the poems in this collection are written from a “conceit” – a prompt or phrase usually alluded to in the title of the poem, such as the Q&A poem, the apology poem, the place poem, the personal poem, or the poem as a direct address to someone or something. This is not to say that these poems come off as exercises or little experiments. No, these are fully-developed poems that stand on their own, taking us beyond the surface of their levity. As in “Q&A: Do you think it helps your poetry if you’ve had a lot of experiences and have seen the world?”, quoted here in its entirety:
It helps to have a room, a window with many panes.
From there you can see the neighbor’s slippered feet
beneath the porch glider, a planter, the brittle heads
of a dead mum, surrounded by miniature flags.
You can hearthe eave’s lone, raucous hive.
Inside, a box fan.
Pare down. Stop here
with this one hand, its paint stains, veins, the missing tip
of a forefinger. This nub with its stunted nail—notwithstanding
the sparrow, its darting climb and clamp to line—
is enough to tell everything
anyone has ever wanted to know.
I’ve been a fan of Baggott’s poetry since reading her first award-winning collection, This Country of Mothers. It is very satisfying to find poets, like Baggott, whom you can return to time and again, finding them always fresh, always enjoyable.
65 pp.
Baggott also publishes novels under the pen name Bridget Asher, and has written childrens stories under the pen name N.E. Body.
