spreading, luminous, by Jill Darling

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Delighting in wordplay, spreading, luminous, though subtle, also delves into climate, pollution, and politics in mini poetic essays and prose poetry varied in form and structure. Throughout, language shivers and jumps, sometimes stands still as if willing time to stop, lingers in present tense and bursts of color. Poetic prose floats in mysteries of time and memory, pulling past into present through imagery and scenes that capture intensities of feeling, as if to let the past settle before moving on.

Activating past events or moments, language and memory work as portals. From the purposeful misinterpretation of languages and sounds that create whole new worlds, to climate anxiety enacted in play with good and bad habits, to seemingly lighthearted poetic responses to questions about fresh water, there is sometimes a swirling of unknowing and inability to articulate. Still, this work revels in the music of language as exploration through which reading feels like a journey, a process of reassurance and overcoming angst and unease, the poetic as a way of working through.

Jill Darling has published poetry, fiction, and creative and critical essays. Her books include Geographies of Identity: Narrative Forms, Feminist Futures, (re)iterations, a geography of syntax, Solve For, and begin with may: a series of moments as well as two collaborative chapbooks with Laura Wetherington and Hannah Ensor. She’s won awards and residencies from The Academy of American Poets, the Mary Anderson Center for the Arts in Indiana, Spark Box Studio, and the Hambidge Center for the Arts. Darling teaches at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and lives in Ypsilanti, MI. More info and links to work online can be found at jilldarling.com.