[REVIEW] Love & Metaxa by Christina Strigas

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Starting a review with your own blurb is a weird thing to do, but here we are. I’ve been a fan of Strigas’s work for a while now, so when she asked me to read her latest and say something about it, I jumped at the opportunity to talk about her poetry outside of a review. Here’s what I said:

“Love & Metaxa is a collection of feelings violently thrown against the page. Strigas’s work is intense and honest. This collection is a mirror that reminds us of ourselves: a little dirty, a bit sad, stained with coffee, questioning everything, remembering the things that turned into scars, craving booze, ignoring the way the heart aches. These poems are the equivalent of making out with a stranger in a parking lot as wild horses stampede down the street and you feel the weight of the ghosts of old lovers hanging from your lips. Ah, but there is fun and lust, locked rooms and books, the beach and the fact that death is not yet here. Forget reading these poems; feel them. They will probably kiss you in return.”

That blurb contains no lies, but I didn’t have enough space to say everything I wanted to say about this collection. Enter this review.

Love & Metaxa is a bizarre rollercoaster of emotions. Strigas makes love in one poem and then deal with her father’s death in the next. There are kisses and glioblastomas, a bit of music and a lot of booze, a few ghosts and a lot of pain. In a nutshell, these poems are a collection of feelings and experiences, all filtered through poetry, all containing a slice of Strigas, a chunk of her life:

I slept under crumbled bridges,?

car lights reflecting pothole prisms,

when I lost my soul to the?

gods of: drugs.?

wars?

alcohol?

dead poets?

sharp philosophers?

listless writers.

Our glowing graffiti—illegal,

Polaroids, opioids?

a tower of glossy tabloids—

Past inflated—dated bottles

majestic little lanterns

erupting enlightened.

You filled in a spotlight for me,

In neon bars I slaved in,?

smoky?

local

emptied, lonely rebel—?

just another female poet, a fitted slave

I became your Metaxa maid.

No more niceties.?

As the antihero you were made to be:

under a highway bridge?

ashamed?

stuffed inside a glass pillow, evoking

cult leaders.?

A revelation I named Vacant Lot.

The magic of Love & Metaxa resides in its balance: it’s beautiful and ugly, painful and happy, sexy and sad. These are poems are traveling, but also about things you want to forget and fridges full of hostility, of books but also of loss, of city lights and naked flesh. Strigas writers with her heart on her sleeve, and the writing here reflects that with poem after poem full of memorable lines, pointed questions, and sharp observations. Read that blurb again. Done? Now go get your kiss. 

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, editor, literary critic, and professor living in Austin, TX. He is the author of ZERO SAINTS and COYOTE SONGS. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.