H_NGM_N Books

$12/ 82 pgs

As a poet who started out as a prose writer first, I’ve always been drawn to narrative poetry, work that is character driven and uses some of the tropes of fiction, while still elevating language as only poetry can. C.S. Carrier’s second full-length collection of poems, Mantle, is not work I am typically drawn to. However, as early as the first page and first poem, Carrier’s book grabbed my attention and didn’t let go until the final page. His lines are gorgeous and wild, his images surreal and sometimes deadpan, and his language a reminder of the energy a single poem can contain.

The book opens with the haunting poem “Back in the Day.” Here Carrier blends surrealism, history, and child memories all in a few short stanzas. In one stanza, the poem contains an image of a praying mantis with a Bible wedged in its mouth, and in another God, labeled as an absentee ballot, floats away “on a bowl of magma.” These lines are balanced with references to politics, including Tehran and Ronald Reagan. Other imagery is apocalyptic, even in the first stanza: “I climbed the oak in the yard/The oak began dying/Blood was fermenting in Iran.”  Though the poem’s bizarre images and references to childhood and politics make little sense at first, there is much to enjoy, especially the strange, juxtaposed images. Continue reading →