Hush SessionsThe notion of exchange circulates throughout Kristi Maxwell’s superlative second collection of poetry, Hush Sessions. In a series of utterly unique poetic experiences, things transform or transfer: superstition becomes science, and bodies become texts to read. In addition, family mythologies become sites of substitution and a borderland where irrationality and rationalization touch. Kristi Maxwell’s poetry reminds us that words, like objects, do not exist in a singular state, and their multiplicity is activated through perception: “a veil during/ the trying on rather than the pride of/ the dress.” As Fanny Howe says, Maxwell’s poems “have pure, ephemeral lines that suggest much thought about time and utterance, yet they float free without any need for explanation.” |
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2/3rds Water antibodies Artist/Poet Collaboration Series Artwork asked asterisk Backwards City Review blizzard blood body Books Poetry Prize bowl bulbs called carpet Cheep Christmas Cold Collaboration Series Number Dead Birds deserve detour divvy Elvis empty excerpt from Hush eyes favorite feel fertile fingers fish floor forget love forgive forgiven frantic Girl girl glass Goes the Weasel guardrail hair hand hangar hear heartache Heave Hope husband Hush Sessions insistence jokes kidding knee Kristi Maxwell light Lipsticks Log of Dead looked lost a tooth marriage metal handrail mouth nose orifice Pigeon-Not-On-Its-Back pinned poems porchlight ransacked raven skull reclined Sabrina Orah Mark sad thing Sarcophagus Saturnalia Books Poetry Second separate pockets shirt sidewalk skin sleep slide my tongue slipping snow sounds Superstition tablecloth talk show teeth Tell Motel there's tooth situation tug tug vacations wait wallpaper what's Wife window wing Winner Xmas ཏི ཏེ