![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Screenshot_20230911-202444_Chrome.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGirls from the County <\/span><\/i>by Donna Lynch<\/span><\/p>\n Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n ISBN: 978-1947879478<\/span><\/p>\n Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/span><\/p>\n Buy:\u00a0 \u00a0Bookshop.org<\/a>\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The city and the country are not the only dangerous places for a woman, according to Donna Lynch\u2019s <\/span>Girls from the County. <\/span><\/i>In these poems<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>girls create a permanent connection to their landscape through the memories of places that \u201cwant to kill you\u201d and the tragic deaths that result from ignoring ghostly warnings.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lynch depicts the county as a haunted setting where people continue to tell the stories of horrible events involving nameless women whose lives have been destroyed there or, conversely, whose names became famous only because of the grisly details of their death. These are old stories, but also current ones, which show that some things do stay the same and that the only thing between you and disaster might be, as Lynch tells us, the words of your wise grandmother who knows how to survive.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The county girl, as Lynch points out, soon realizes that what passes as tradition, ritual or symbol is darker than it seems and even darker when you trace it to its roots. Men play a big role in this hidden evil – of violence by the river,\u00a0 \u201canimal screams\u201d mixing with unidentified screams in the woods, and things known by county girls that can\u2019t be proven in order to save them or get them the justice they deserve. Even ordinary parties are characterized as events where county girls are likely to be \u201cdevoured\u201d by men.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is an occult connection between these horrors and old parts of a county – old burial grounds, old home sites now vacant, old houses where someone might think there was \u201csomething\u201d scary in the window, old quarries and old cars that might be hiding dead bodies, and even gatherings of women trying to use the dark arts to protect themselves or to take revenge, not knowing whether they are really unleashing even more destruction.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Lynch\u2019s short, free verse poems that often read like prose narratives describe the county as a place where girls are held \u201cin captivity\u201d and want to escape, where the \u201cbeauty queen\u201d finds out how her good looks are also a curse, and where people talk to you one day and disappear or abandon you the next. There are threats that make these girls stay silent about what they know, that warn them to avoid being \u201cdramatic\u201d by not making accusations without \u201cevidence,\u201d that cause them to be concerned about their safety if they are \u201cpretty\u201d or \u201csad\u201d because being perceived in those ways opens them up to being targeted by a predator.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n With menacing poem titles like \u201cThe Thing about Girls with Hammers\u201d and \u201cWhen the Cloud Comes for You,\u201d a reference to a Dorothy in Oz who does <\/span>not<\/i><\/b> want to go home, <\/span>Girls from the County<\/span><\/i> depicts the county as a place where there is a barely contained fear, a lurking anxiety, a sense that every person, location, and situation is a potential threat to girls. In \u201cThirty-two Years (Eighteen Years Reprise)\u201d the speaker worries, \u201cWhat if \/ what we really saw \/ were all the things \/ we could not escape\u201d and realizes that, ultimately, the \u201churt\u201d \u201cwaited for us in the trees,\u201d and so, these girls have no choice but to run while the past always follows closely behind.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reviewed by Nova Hadley<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Girls from the County by Donna Lynch Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2022 ISBN: 978-1947879478 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition Buy:\u00a0 \u00a0Bookshop.org\u00a0 |\u00a0 Amazon.com The city and the country are not the only dangerous places for a woman, according to Donna Lynch\u2019s Girls from the County. In these poems, girls create a permanent connection to<\/p>\n