Scorched earth

To describe her second poetry collection, following I Can't Talk about the Trees without the Blood (2018), Clark repurposes a quote from Ralph Ellison on the blues that calls the genre, "an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically." Writing on the heels of divorce, Clark channels desperation, humor, desire, and anger into themes of race, sex, and relationships. Clark's long lines, long stanzas, and long poems evidence her courage to "lean into length," a quote she attributes to poet José Olivarez, as she navigates many hyphenate states of mind--self-doubt, self-confidence, and self-acceptance. Clark reflects on stereotypical beauty standards on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air ("weave, fake nails, contacts, and eyelashes") and celebrates the "The First Black Bachelorette" as well as the speaker's own mother, "hair like braided / black licorice." Other poems interact with the striking silhouette art of Kara Walker and confront the impossible compromises made in the name of survival; "resistance isn't always about pushing / back but perhaps submitting to a field / of cotton." These are wonderfully intertextual poems bristling with bright intelligence, formal variation, and outlandishly feral longing, "There is still some residue, some proof of puncture, / some scars you graze to remember the risk."

Multi-prize-winning poet Clark (I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood) offers a second volume of poems that trace the narrator's journey from the first days of divorce (as in the poem "Proof" in which the lines "People get weird about divorce. Think it's contagious." create an overarching statement) to new love (some moments of hope are found in "The Terror of New Love": "your arms another possible / home"). These poems are breathless and wandering (or wondering?), and while often long, are keenly observant and perceptive. "If my body be a long poem / then I want it to go wherever it needs." The narrator's divorce creates a furious search for identity--as a woman, as a Black woman finding value in her blackness, as both a hetero and queer lover, as a woman coming to terms: "I become who I am by not knowing--." VERDICT Clark's poems are a journey of astonishing clarity and vision.--Karla Huston

Self-Portrait at Divorce Self-Portrait at Divorce The day my husband left I accidentally set off the house alarm and the dog finally curled into my chest like a warm croissant of cream fur and you had replaced the trash bag for the last time and the recycling and I walked into your office and I wept and wept inside your pillow on our bed (whoops) I mean my bed a California king our biggest bed yet because we wanted space for our long bodies to stretch and room for the dog to splay and I put water in the dog bowl and I told myself that I had to remember to do that because you had always done that simple task and you often reminded me to do it when I forgot and I didn't want our dog to die of thirst and you left a cup of water on the end table by the couch we had picked out the year before-- we had just walked into an Ashley furniture store on a Saturday and sat on the first fake living room set and said this is us like we knew what we wanted but we did that day (we did) and it was easy (which was rare for us)--and I put your last cup of water to my mouth and I guessed where your mouth might have been on the rim and I pressed my lips to the glass (I had the nicest lips like two pillows you always said) and I kissed the cup and poured out the rest of the water into the sink and it wasn't an offering to anything and I put the cup in the dishwasher and I started to tremble and the house seemed (smelled?) like it was a train but it was just the actual train that rumbles behind our house (I mean my house) and you called and told me you went to the hospital for chest pains and I wasn't with you at the walk-in clinic but you said I was still your emergency contact and I slept on the couch that night because I didn't want to sleep in our (I mean) my big bed and I wanted to grovel my way back to the complacency of us and I wanted to grasp at the stomach of anyone and I wanted the almost-happy home we had and I keep walking into each room and staring at the objects that we bought together remembering fights at Target laughter at Target splitting up and conquering a to-do list at Target and those little zapper guns they gave us at Target when we registered for our wedding gifts and I haven't showered in days I have a sourness to me and the lids of my eyes are swollen like tiny beige water balloons from all the sobbing and I wanted to end this poem with gladness instead of the sound of the knife drawer opening and closing opening and closing music of metals and cabinet wood jingle and the clink of steel blades and measuring spoons rustling against their edges and contours and I didn't harm myself because I did want to harm myself I wanted to feel the negotiation of pain besides the present pain and I wanted the body's paint to come (but I didn't do it OKAY) I just thought about it and I think I am proud of myself today for sitting down inside the empty well of grief and looking up (I always forget to look up) and I didn't do it okay I didn't and I still want joy at the end, but the day my husband moved out it felt like the first real day of fall because it was Excerpted from Scorched Earth: Poems by Tiana Clark All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.