Bøger af Kimberly Ann Priest

still life is a fractured carnival of language, each poem casting a pedophile in a new setting under the inspirited control of objects and expectations as the assaulted speaker of these poems is vicariously vivified and muted by animated memories of the pedophilic act. The poems are linguistically tight, prose-y, and punctuated so that the pedophile feels immediately present and inseparable from the speaker. This is the reality of trauma - time collapses. The past becomes the present so that "the windows // the plaster // the paint // the hard wood floors // the doorways // the beams beneath / above /behind everything" constrict the speaker in a room, long ago, where her body was "bright and bulbing //undercooked // tight as egg" and vulnerable to predatory behavior. While these poems draw attention to the residual effects of childhood trauma that haunt a victim throughout her adult life, they also highlight the pedophile's human bondage, revealing his own psychological entrapment. In this book, psyches are live wired, but every limb remains in its original, violated, place.

"Kimberly Ann Priest's debut full-length collection Slaughter the One Bird is a haunting and incisive meditation on the enduring effects of childhood sexual abuse. Reflecting on the impact of trauma on her memories and role as a mother, Priest intertwines past and present in a series of lyrical confessions and meditations on power and grief. In poems addressed to the nameless "pedophile," as well as a series of vignettes on everyday life ranging from subjects as varied as the preparation of breakfast to the migration of deer, she deconstructs the history of abuse spanning from childhood to her adult life in which she finds herself trapped in a relationship with a violent partner. Religious legalism and shame play a strong role in the power dynamics between perpetrator and victim. Vivid and moving, these poems offer a highly personal glimpse into the poet's journey through disempowerment and grief toward healing"--Amazon.com.