Just to the Right of the Stove

Poŝlibro, 132 paĝoj

Lingvo: English

Eldonita de Twist In Time.

ISBN:: 978-1-7339744-6-2
Goodreads:: 56859358

(1 recenzo)

“Elisabeth Horan’s new collection Just to the Right of the Stove opens by the fridge, a cold beginning perhaps to counter the heated conversations that will unfold from our two protagonists, one already doomed and the other trying to decide. The first poem is voiced by both Sylvia Plath and our own Elisabeth, wondering if the only way to make it on the page is to step away from the flesh. Sylvia promises to help and so the timer is set and on we go...”

– Damien Donnelly, Poet and Author

1 eldono

Stephanie Jane recenzis Just to the Right of the Stove de Elisabeth Horan

Intense poetry

3 steloj

Just to the Right of the Stove is an evocatively mundane title for Elisabeth Horan's new poetry collection, conjuring up images of cosy kitchens and domestic bliss when the reality of life, as seen through Horan's poetry, is a series of very different scenarios. The poems are linked by an imagined conversation between Horan herself and the American poet with whom she particularly identifies, Sylvia Plath. Both women suffered intensely from postpartum depression and the ramifications of this for themselves and their families are the focus of Just to the Right of the Stove.

I felt I was not as familiar as I needed to be with Plath's work in order to fully appreciate Horan's overtly experimental poems. I've only read The Bell Jar once, several years ago, and don't recall ever having read her poetry. That said, I appreciated the more accessible works which allowed me disturbing insights into …

Just to the Right of the Stove is an evocatively mundane title for Elisabeth Horan's new poetry collection, conjuring up images of cosy kitchens and domestic bliss when the reality of life, as seen through Horan's poetry, is a series of very different scenarios. The poems are linked by an imagined conversation between Horan herself and the American poet with whom she particularly identifies, Sylvia Plath. Both women suffered intensely from postpartum depression and the ramifications of this for themselves and their families are the focus of Just to the Right of the Stove.

I felt I was not as familiar as I needed to be with Plath's work in order to fully appreciate Horan's overtly experimental poems. I've only read The Bell Jar once, several years ago, and don't recall ever having read her poetry. That said, I appreciated the more accessible works which allowed me disturbing insights into the poet's mind. To see how her self-perception is warped by this mental illness was unsettling to me as a reader, and I can't even begin to imagine how traumatic it must be to be locked into that reality, especially as Horan shows she is only too aware of her irrational behaviour, yet without the means to change it. Just To The Right Of The Stove vividly portrays her life, I thought, in a way that a factual essay could never do.

Thinking back over the emotions this collection provoked in me as I read, I feel that I also gained understanding through the inscrutable poems with which, at the time, I failed to connect. One poem, Keeping Tabs or Dabbing The Corners Of Our Mouths Like Ladies, for example, had me believing that I understood Horan's predicament and, arrogantly, even that I could empathise, but turning a page to then struggle with Not your type of alone, swirling away beyond my comprehension, demonstrated quite the opposite to be true. Just To The Right Of The Stove allowed me to see how much I cannot know.

Temoj

Poetry