Double Jinx follows the multiple transformations - both figurative and literal - that accompany adolescence and adulthood, particularly for young women. Drawing inspiration from sources as varied as Ovid's Metamorphoses, the rewritten fairy tales in Anne Sexton's Transformations, and the wild and shifting dreamscapes of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's work, these poems track speakers attempting to construct identity. A series of poems depict the character of Nancy Drew as she delves into an obsession with a doppelg#65533;nger. Cinderella wakes up to a pumpkin and a tattered dress after her prince grows tired of her. A young girl obsessed with fairy tales becomes fascinated with a copy of Grey's Anatomy in which she finds a "pink girl pinned to the page as if in vivisection. Could she / be pink inside like that? No decent girl / would go around the world like that, uncooked." The collection culminates in an understanding of the ways we construct ourselves, whether it be by way of imitation, performance, and/or transformation. And it looks forward as well, for in coming to understand our identities as essentially malleable, we are liberated. Or as the author writes, "we'll be our own gods now."
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The chorus girls descend, their wings a wonderof feather and zipline.
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(Copper Nickel, 1 January 2015, paperback, 96 pages, bought from AmazonUK)
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I'd never heard of the poet before and decided to read Double Jinx because I stumbled across some reviews online. I've only read this collection once. I enjoyed revisiting it because I read it a while ago so couldn't remember much about it. I enjoyed all of the poems in this collection. I enjoyed the poet's style and use of imagery and the structure of the poems. I liked the fact that the poems are all different and explore an array of themes. I especially liked The Case of the Double Jinx, Family Portrait with Rosary and Steak Knife, Still Life With Mannequin and Leg of Lamb and Birds Keep Nothing in Their Bones.
