The Temp

                Image courtesy of the Poetry Foundation                       After reading  The Bell Jar,  and experiencing their own melancholy, young adults tend to throw the name “Sylvia Plath” around as if they know her. She carries the weight of her reputation, much like David Foster Wallace and his tragic bandana. There’s no question that Plath is one of the most widely recognized poets of the 20 th century. But it’s problematic that most readers see her only as an image of mental illness and hip indie culture.  Part of her mystery stems from the manipulation of her image by her husband as this woman of tragedy.  Combined with her unpublished collection of poems,  Ariel,  it was difficult to see past that image. The restored version of  Ariel— ordered by Plath rather than Hughes, had the capacity to chan...

        What are the boundaries of love? Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s debut novel explores the relationship between love and violence through an affair between 55-year old Binta and Reza, a 25-year old leader of San Siro, an urban home for drug dealers and rough and tumble misfits in Northern Nigeria.              The secret romance begins when Reza robs Binta’s home: an unexpected meeting place that foreshadows an electric tension th at carries throughout the novel. Reza and Binta’s relationship is further complicated by the histories of each lover. Reza’s young, rebellious nature is a haunting reminder of Binta’s dead son Yaro, while Binta reminds Reza of his estranged mother. Ibrahim makes these parallels quite obvious from the inception of the romance when Binta observes that she had not been touched by a man since her husband’s death 15 year priors, quite literally in the middle of being attac...

 Over thirty years since its original publication, Shearsman Books has revived Gig Ryan’s Manners of an Astronaut  to demonstrate a timelessness of dissatisfaction. The collection varies between being grounded in an unsatisfactory relationship and an abstractness representing the speaker’s internal disillusionment. The collection relies upon the sensation of confusion, disjointedness, and a staggering bluntness that leaves the reader both confused and understanding of the speaker’s winding mind. Ryan initially introduces a narrative in the first poem: “In Blue Craft and Two Minds.” She begins with the line “You turn lesbian in the back-seat of the taxi.” The significance of this statement reveals itself as the collection progresses, as this idea of sexual self-discovery and a dissatisfaction with her male partner strengthens in the poems to follow. From then on the collection progresses to reveal the bluntness of a wavering mind by juxtaposing unconventional images and abst...