THE NAME OF THIS INTERSECTION IS FROST by MARYROSE LARKIN

TOM BECKETT Reviews

The Name of This Intersection Is Frost by Maryrose Larkin
(Shearsman Books, Exeter, U.K., 2010)

This is a book of two parts, of two poetic sequences: “Inverse” and “Late Winter 30.”

Each page of both sequences functions as a unit—autonomous—but also as a part of a broader improvisational scheme and an ongoing meditation.

The title of the book is taken from this page in “Inverse":

The name of this intersection is frost broken up

heavy spar reign   heavy phrase ravishment
            strands careening

let us unfurl instead: weather
            see also river

see also  self  and the less restricted sense   (17)

This is a book of inner and outer (and linguistic) weathers/formations:

see also   anagram  the human oxide
see also   nomenclature grey  textbloom

compare to articulate silicate compare to countersign
            to the tongue flowering   (36)

There’s so much beauty and intelligence and verve in this book—an intellectual and artistic vibrancy—I don’t know how to parse it. I don’t know that I want to. I’m always struggling with parts and pieces. I have the sense that this is true for Ms. Larkin too:

Look again: shadow chaos train chaos expecting never

I’m partly a mouthpiece partially an other partly indifferent
          winter winter

dodger cirrocumulus or every or suffer or mouth or late
thirty passed over doppler impossible she pushed into a
shadow and it pushed back

            don’t look

partly partially  partly window  partly fractured inland
and in body and system partly mixing up and
pinked out   (50)

How gorgeous is that? You probably don’t think, dear readers, that I expect you to answer. But I do, I do.

*****

Tom Beckett's Parts and Other Pieces was published recently by Otoliths. He lives in Kent, Ohio.