Reviewed by Cheryl Passanisi
Woodcuts by the author in the cover design and at the beginning of each section create a mythological reference for this poetry collection. The animal totems of crow, rabbit, wolf, cat, lion, fish, panther, grasshopper, carry these themes and images throughout the book. A horned creature (devil), skeleton, dress, dress form and random etched alphabet letters create an presentiment of incantation weaving images into chant that carry magic. The lines of the poems themselves are arranged across the page as if cut into the paper like a woodcut creating a seamless pattern from image to word. This arrangement creates a needed distancing between the reader and the difficult content of the poems to provide a safe way to handle the hot topics. The subjects covered are often raw, dangerous, and painful.
Early in the first section, “Dressed to Fill”, is the devastating “A Landfill Dress Mourns” and recalls a first date and betrayal: “a dress rushed to ships bound for Chile/dumped where vultures wing slant…/peck in polyester looking for meat/…the fragrance of a vamp in death”. The Dress recalls: “…my off-the-shoulder slink -/velvet yellow she wore me/cat-lazed between her breasts”. Then: “only stockings//ripped from her on a first date”. The Dress also conjures the perpetrator in “his tie and cummerbund twist/among legs not here…” Later: “she was his first murder”. The images startling and chilling: “how did rhinestones replace eyes of mice/no seeds left/they starve/biting only buttons down my back…” This poem challenges the old trope of blaming the victim: she brought this rape/killing on herself by dressing provocatively. In this poem the Dress itself is victim and betrayed, relegated to a dump rather than talisman in closet recalling a memorable evening and first date. These poems are not for the faint of heart.
The last poem in this section, “Twinned”, tells of a betrayal by a parent. The specific betrayal is not explicitly stated but, any betrayal of a child by an adult entrusted with their care, is always traumatic and deeply scarring. The language refers to an intimate betrayal: “her father’s heartbeat/slow tow of an acre/for himself”. “Twinned” refers to the “slayer and slain” now “…still paired with him like the first/time/she was murdered/his table place setting/engine die/and car door slam…” Imagine sitting at table in a mundane family scene at dinner with the perpetrator of the crime sitting before the “place setting”. The roles superficially resume but the relationship forever changed with shame. The scarring is painfully recounted: “his dangle/circling her empty slipper shame/stag beetle/chews her name/deep/and young/into oak/limb from limb”. This recounting excruciating and stunning, leaves you wounded. It is an endless dance of death and shame of the unspeakable, all the more chilling for its unspeakable nature; a deeply scarring humiliation and violation that circles and perpetuates itself: “welded to his hunt/he/double crossing/a river waging.”
Section II: Magic. The first poem in this section is: “Morozko (The Frost King) Asks, Are you Warm Child?” The first line: “The freezing girl answers using a dictionary, and for lying, she is rewarded with furs and jewels”. We find out the fate of those who say the truth: “my sisters speak the toads of truth/ of course I am cold you fool – / and of course they die”. The stunning image: “…with lipstick berries in the snow I try/to draw a bow over a determined point/ on my upper lip to speak the lie –” It is as if the “bow” is actually a bow and arrow to sling the lie from her lips, land the lie and let it sting like a weapon – she turns the lie into a weapon and in so doing strikes back at the requirement of lies that define the roles of women in society. More often than not, these roles hold subordinate positions with little power and the only way to defend is to use the subterfuge of sharp language.
Many of the poems are retelling of fairy tales repeating the familiar stories with a perspective and emphasis that reexamines the prescribed roles and the unrealistic expectations of women. The Madonna/Whore dichotomy is a thread throughout. If the woman stays in the proper roles of haloed and silent mother she is saint but if she becomes sexually alive the halo slips and she is demonized as whore. Section III: (Hysteria), alludes to these images.
“Snow White in the Dolomite Mountains”, the first poem in Section III, exemplifies the Madonna/Whore template: sacrificed virgin cherished but glassed in, contained in slumber or altered state. She is deprived of consciousness and unable to escape her fate:
“why did he sway me into an asphyxiate-blue waltz/our steps in the airless//miners find me dear”
And:
“he hauls me to his castle/keeps my child corpse close to him for many drenches of sun exhumed by moon//once I cough waking/undoing his love spell/he hurries me back to cloud…”
The virginal beauty, placed on a pedestal or under glass to be admired, is unable to have a voice, have agency or experience the full range of human feeling. Sequestered, the protection is like a death to be escaped, avoided or outwitted. The state of being admired “under glass” objectifies women and removes the possibility of genuine love; exhibiting flaws or will is forbidden.
I am partial to end-of-the-world poems and so “Briar Rose as Hysteric at the End of the World” intrigues me. She says: “how many skies stream over triple-deckers and choking eglantine/only thorned kingdom ajar/keenest hawk elegy… lie with the prince deeper than clothes/master the century of addled blue/unbidden magic”. The “end of the world” hints at an end of the independence and self-determination that is the fate of women who “lie with the prince”. The feminine cannot be rendered or defined other than in opposition to the masculine.
In a December 2023 interview with Kristina Marie Darling, Grassl discusses the “shadow of father-kings and wedded princes” and a patriarchy that has historically tried to silence, define and limit women throughout the ages and across multiple cultures. Even in the darkness created by misogyny, Grassl argues for the emergence from “chrysalis and catacomb” resulting in transformation. She describes her quest for a “new” language/form to hold the gravity of these forces and develops “an invented style harking back to Old English and German. This alterity feels necessary – strange enough to meet the content.”
This “alterity” is evident in “The Quiet Room” which is about hospitalization after a psychotic episode or suicide attempt:
“walls padden before I camen/ceiling pressen down floor risening/when lock clicken aftershove of course throw self at door…out/wanten if gaven up they will offern only proper noise droppen pill into paper/ cup water drinken taint soft moon of easier/patients’ moan…white noise of wings (keepen beating”
The rhythm creates a musical and dreamy stream of consciousness that mimics the psychotic or drugged state of the hospitalized patient.
These poems challenge our preconceived notions and prescribed roles with fascinating imagery and provocative language that introduces Grassl own invented syntax. This unique use of language takes on visually significant forms. The subject matter encompasses dangerous and threatening conditions such as betrayal, life-threatening mental illness, the rigors of treatment, incarceration, and the end of the world. These poems, fashioned with incantatory cadence, are strong medicine but also essential for understanding where we came from, our present conditions and how to develop a society that truly values women and the feminine.
About the reviewer: Cheryl Ann Passanisi was born and raised on the central coast of California and went to school at California State University, Long Beach, and University of California, San Francisco where she earned a master’s degree in Nursing. She lives on the San Francisco peninsula and works at a teaching hospital as a nurse practitioner. She is active in local community theater and opera chorus.