Aldrich Press

31 pages, $14

Review by Lauren Gordon

AnnMarie O’Connell’s chapbook Her Last Cup of Light is an ode to the south side of Chicago.  Her voice is rooted in the spirit of the neighborhood and she traverses the landscape with her young son, while contemplating the birth of another son.  The poems are lyrical vignettes that home in on the people in the city, from mechanics to shut-ins.  A thin motif of nature emerges and almost becomes supernatural against the urban sprawl, which lends to strange ecstasy.  Even the titles of the poems are meant to be read as first lines, as if the poems occur in a rushed breath.

Anxiety is the engine powering the poetry, but in that same rushed breath, O’Connell is also offering a reader something surprising – hope.  There is a dead serious hopefulness in humanity that is wrought through deceptively simple language and imagery.  A good example of this is in the poem “The Man Who Lives in the Abandoned Garage”:

touches the baby’s cheek with his dirtiest hand.
With the other, he gives him a handful of grass.

The baby brings a single green-yellow blade to his lips.
The rest slip through his little fingers. Continue reading →