Neck of the Woods
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The shifting balance of one’s past, present, and future self is at the heart of this collection. Poems contemplate human darkness, femininity, grief, innocence, finding how they coexist and intersect while confronting their origins. Intimacy, memory, and navigating adulthood in the mythos of the South pull together nostalgia and seeks the affirmation of how to move forward after life-altering moments
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Woolard's gripping debut opens with and circles a mystery and trauma: "It ends with the house in the sky/ Slamming back onto its acreage. The girl// Inside is not the same girl who lived there in/ The beginning hide the pieces, where they may be found." Woolard's whiskey-soaked Southern landscape has echoes of Oz: "No kidding! A house killed my sister too, I'm telling you. It didn't fall/ On top of her, no, but it snipped off a little lock of her each day." For Woolard, houses have transformative power; they can kill you in bad weather or a fire, or they can simply outlast you: "a house is the largest tombstone we make." The houses in these poems are haunted as their speakers are by memory: "Listen, set/ The turntable's dusty needle gently on my shoulderblade./ You've got me down to my unmentionables." Woolard's writing is full of memorable juxtapositions and turns of phrase, among them: "I was asked to show up with a side-dish. I made/ A slaw of my longing" and "whiskey moves through me like/ it's checking me for ticks." This debut offers a troubled journey delivered by a voice the reader will want to keep listening to.
