![](\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51Dvh0fGzbS._SX311_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
T<\/em>he Smallest of Bones <\/em>by Holly Lyn Walrath<\/p>\n Clash Books, 2021<\/p>\n ISBN-13: 978-1944866952<\/p>\n Available: Paperback\u00a0(\u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a> |\u00a0\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a> )<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you strip me down to my bones \/ am I yours<\/em>?\u201d the speaker asks, in Holly Ryn Walrath\u2019s poetry collection The Smallest of Bones. <\/em>Groups of poems divided into sections called Cranium, Mandible, Sternum, Sacrum, Spine, Calcaneus, and Temporal provide a larger osteo-literary structure into which the poems slip like so many small bones surrounding the artistic organs of thought and emotion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes surprising, often disturbing and provocative, these poems are the life-blood emerging from the marrow of meaning. There are vivid images of \u201cocean eyes\u201d and \u201cdemon\u2019s tongue,\u201d a couple symbolized as \u201cthe tree burning after\u201d and \u201ccondemned women\u201d as metaphorical \u201crare birds\u201d who should be studied. One speaker asks, \u201chold me under your tongue \/ like unspoken regret,\u201d\u00a0 another confesses, \u201cI carry my face in my pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There are many memorable lines to savor throughout the collection. Some of these rhyme: \u201cthe smallest of bones \/ is a part of the hammer in your ear \/ love is a heartbreak you can hear.\u201d Some are startling: \u201cask me, where is your wild woman? I shot her in the face\u201d and \u201cwouldn\u2019t you rather be something violent if you had the choice?\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walrath also considers love, but it is not in the usual terms. In the moment of connection, \u201chis hands tensile slipping under my radar my heart was sonar,\u201d the speaker remembers, and \u201cto love so much your body changes \/ curving together like two halves of the taijitu or the earth and the moon \/ must be dreadful and excruciating,\u201d reflects another.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walrath also comments on many other topics like sex and gender, physical attraction, memories, science, ghosts, birds, parasites, the nature of women, death, dreams, pain, bodies, flowers and writing. Even the Table of Contents, composed of the section headings and first lines of the poems, can be read as a poem. Try it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI wrap bone chains around your head,\u201d Walrath writes. Yes, she does, and I recommend it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reviewed by Nova Hadley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyn Walrath Clash Books, 2021 ISBN-13: 978-1944866952 Available: Paperback\u00a0(\u00a0Bookshop.org |\u00a0\u00a0Amazon.com ) \u201cIf you strip me down to my bones \/ am I yours?\u201d the speaker asks, in Holly Ryn Walrath\u2019s poetry collection The Smallest of Bones. Groups of poems divided into sections called Cranium, Mandible, Sternum, Sacrum, Spine,<\/p>\n