REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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“An angry woman remains a political act, and is sometimes a creative one as well. Rage, here, is transcended into art. It becomes constructive—clearing the way for growth. Fury is wielded as a transformative force. It burns away impediments to change. What blooms after?”

That’s the last paragraph of the introduction actress, writer, and pornographer Stoya wrote for Amy-Jean Muller’s Baptism by Fire, a superb poetry collection that serves as the perfect introduction to Muller’s work.

Short collections almost demand a concise synopsis, and Muller’s work screams courage. Her poems use vivid imagery to bring thoughts to life or to reshape the past to give it new meaning in order to be share with readers. Her life is here, and so are religion and motherhood, to name two strong cohesive elements that give the collection a sense of unity. Take, for example, the opening lines of “Choked at birth,” a poem that serves to set the atmosphere for what’s to come: 

“My birth was like a hanging;

breathless and suspended from her tree

I was thrust from her branches

with the chord wrapped twice

around my neck”

Muller constantly uses beautiful language to present ugly things, but her technique doesn’t lessen the impact of what hides behind her words. Take “Roses,” which is devastating and, while short, opens up a chasm in the reader’s heart that soon fills up with pain and anger, none of which are in the poem itself in any obvious ways:

“I met a a father once

and he was different from mine

when he laughed at my jokes

looking at the buds that grew on my chest

pushing swollen behind the flesh

of a pink nipple

And when he handled them like roses

His fingers grasped my blossoms

To hear my wince

having taken a bouquet

of petals

from flowers

that were

yet to grow”

The strength it took to write that comes from a place constantly on display in Baptism by Fire. It’s a strength that shines from Muller’s core, showing how she’s seen life for what it is, survived a lot, and is ready to survive whatever else comes, with or without help. The short lines of “Listen” are a perfect example of that strength, even if they show vulnerability:

“Listen, I don’t pray to God often

but when I do

the ghosts dragged behind me

stir up to face

my reticence,

 knowing nobody heard.”

Baptism by Fire shows a maturity born of experience that is rarely found in such raw form. Muller has deconstructed and understood the male gaze, and takes it to task here in a poem that at first seems to be about hair. She has seen how violence is used to cover fragile masculinity, and she attacks a “Little Man,” a “Little Boy,” or where she talks to someone who “pretended to be a man.” She has also seen through religion, and while it remains here as part of her thought—a scar of indoctrination—she’s done with it: “When I left my faith on the roadside/like those dated books from the attic…” Muller is done with religion, with the glass ceiling, with being asked to “wear some heels to raise your children.” However, there’s not just anger here; these poems are also a celebration. These poems celebrate strength, intelligence, and courage. These poems celebrate women.

In the book’s epilogue, Mueller discusses how the collection was inspired by “symbolism and heteropatriarchal norms found in the stories of Greek and Roman mythology.”  The epilogue quickly morphs into something akin to an academic paper on the role of women in male-centric myths, but the beauty of it is how it surreptitiously reveals an awesome truth: it’s easy for men to be the heroes and women to be the monsters and temptresses, but only when men write the narrative. Baptism by Fire subverts that narrative, and the result is a collection about power and womanhood that dances over the corpses of those old narratives.

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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.