Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp
Antediluvian
by Kameryn Alexa Carter
University of Pittsburgh Press
February 2026, $US19, 72 pages, ISBN: 978-0822967675
“I’m a practical mystic: / approachable at the grocery or in line / at the movies,” Kameryn Alexa Carter writes in the poem, “Theoria.” Though a sincere Christian believer, most of the time her poetry sounds saturated in irony, not to say skepticism. In “Eleven Addresses to the Lord” she writes that “our Heaven is but Tomorrowland,” comically comparing the Hereafter to a Disney theme park.
But Carter clarifies her perspective in the prose poem, “Kef21”: “I am not wishing to be rendered into eternity. Nor am I wishing to be made whole.
Only I am reaching toward the sublime in me.
Hers is a deeply spiritual approach to religion. “Kef,” by the way, is a state of dreamy tranquility or drowsy contentment. “Kef in D Minor” is another poem in the collection. Sublime!
As this may suggest, as well as the theme of religious experience, Carter also delves into other mental and emotional states. This is not surprising. As far back as William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, the interconnection between psychology and religion has been a source of speculation and study. Thus, Carter probes themes of emotional distress – claustrophobia, agoraphobia – in Antediluvian, not to mention ecstasy and desire, drawing out the religious implications. “Antediluvian” itself is a charged religious word, referring to the time before the Great Flood recounted in Genesis.
In both “Commodity Fetish” and “Discharge” (and elsewhere) Kameryn Alexa Carter alludes to being treated by medical professionals for her anxieties, and in the title poem she mentions her agoraphobia. Agoraphobia is akin to claustrophobia, but whereas claustrophobia is a fear of closed spaces, agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder where the person feels unsafe in a space – think subway trains or shopping malls, for instance – without a means of escape. The poem “A Party at Annie’s” is like the introvert’s worst nightmare, feeling terribly self-conscious at a gathering of strangers. She writes:
I spend the evening averting my eyes,
chasing after an evasive vibration
by the makeshift bar and reciting incantations
that only I could surmise
were Berryman—lines disarrayed and revised.
Beginning with the prose poem, “St. John the Baptist Bearing Witness” (“I cannot say what god is waiting, only that when they call me, I come barreling”) and ending with “Benediction,” an ode to friendship, the collection’s overall feel, however, is definitely spiritual. Indeed, “Benediction” – and Antediluvian itself – ends on the lines, “When we are
absent from one another, may the lord watch
between thee and me and thee. May there be
a beacon betwixt us. Bless, keep. Amen.
“Benediction,” with its peaceful optimism, is preceded by the poem “Catharsis” (“Every day is Sabbath—keep holy”), which ends triumphantly, “It’s spring. It’s spring. It’s spring.” And there’s rebirth for you!
Clearly seeing herself in the tradition of western poetry, in addition to John Berryman, Carter alludes to Sir Thomas Wyatt, John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Bob Kaufman, Lucie Brock-Broido, Henry Dumas, and Reginald Shepherd. Moreover, there seem to be several references to another mystical poet, Walt Whitman. In “Devil-May-Care” she writes, “I cannot contain / my spirit. Neither multitudes, in fact.” How like Whitman in “Song of Myself” when he writes,
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Music is another recurring theme throughout Antediluvian. The poem, “Love Ballad,” Carter tells us in her notes, was inspired by a song with the same title by the American R&B funk band, LTD. Similarly, “Leave Don’t Go Away Live” was inspired by a live performance of “Leave Don’t Go Away” at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 2013. In the first of four poems titled “Sketches,” she writes:
The days when I starved my body
have passed, but in the witching
hour, I can’t stop filling myself.
Then, the looming morning: playing
Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology.”
Nicknamed “Bird,” I consider
what it means to craft a study
of one’s own species.
Betty Carter (“Open the Door”) and Esther Phillips, another R&B singer (“Grace”) also make cameo appearances. The title of the poem “Monody” alludes to a seventeenth century Italian musical style. Carter writes, “When I leave through
the back door and the music kicks off
in my mind—full of lobster bisque
and holding on to the last fumes of warmth
before evening, I will be ready enough
to call on my dead.
Carter is clever and playful with words. As Derrick Austin notes in his cover blurb, her poetry is “as delicious to read aloud as it is to experience on the page.” Musical and lyrical, her poetry can hypnotize the reader. Some of my favorite images include “sin-tinged singing” in the poem “Tinnitus” and “No matter the ache or the acreage” in the prose poem “Grace,” and these line from “Aubade (Dysphoria)” sing:
What’s tempting, what’s teeming,
what’s timid, what tensile touch,
what mathematics which code me:
twinned and twined together.
Kameryn Alexa Carter’s introspection and agility with language make Antediluvian a joy to read.
About the reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for Brick House Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. His most recent releases are Sparring Partners from Mooonstone Press, Ugler Lee from Kelsay Books, Catastroika from Apprentice House, Presto from Bamboo Dart Press, See What I Mean? from Kelsay Books, The Trapeze of Your Flesh from Blazevox Books, and most recently, The Tao According to Calvin Coolidge, published by Kelsay Books.