Name: Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities
ISBN: 9781619321250

Olena Kalytiak Davis

Now in paperback, "Shattered Sonnets breathes life into American verse . . . (an) urgent and unrepentant collection" (Poetry).

Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities

azliana aziz

Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other off and Back Handed Importunities

heather

An absolutely distinct collection of poems!

These poems are really out of my usual poetic taste but their experimentalism pleasantly surprised me. Olena Kalytiak Davis has such a way with poetic devices and words! Her constant use of poetic devices like repetition, enjambment, caesura, assonance, consonance and alliteration is so effective in highlighting the persona's discomfort and disconcerting thoughts. 

Some of my favourite poems include 'the unbosoming', 'dis-spelt', 'she (as sonnet)' and 'notes toward the ablation of the soul'.

I think the poem 'notes toward the ablation of the soul' is so well done! I feel like the constant repetition of 'soul' is super effective because it gradually makes the word lose its meaning. In a way, it kind of evoked some feeling of frustration in me as well because of how annoying the appearance of the word 'soul' was. This made me want to stop seeing the word 'soul' so much I was actually very satisfied when I reached the last few lines of the poem: "the damned soul out / finally, out / out out / of your / system". Literally, ablation. The effect this poem had on me was just insane I love it...

My favourite poem is definitely 'she (as sonnet)'. It's just so good... The use of parenthesis in 'everywhere (verywhere)' reminds me of Sylvia Plath's 'Mad Girl's Love Song' so much and the use of enjambment in 'let-ter' is just chef's kiss! The characterisation of "her" is just amazing and I can totally feel how overwhelmed (in a lovesick way) the persona is by the thought of "her".

 Short excerpt from 'she (as sonnet)': 

 She consumed all my thought, she made it hard to answer the phone, to write a fine let-
ter. She got in the way, between me and what I was meant to do on these backlit
winter days. The sun and the moon and the seas, the sea: she swam there as well.

She arrived in the mail.
She was the scratch in every mirror. 

She, the one with bare shoulders, the one that I love love loved. 

Overall, I'm still giving this collection 3.5 stars because while I appreciate Olena Kalytiak Davis' talent in playing with words and sounds, most poems weren't as clear in terms of readability and understanding. (If the sole purpose of the poems was to just produce an unsettling effect and disorient the readers, then that was definitely achieved.)

Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards, and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities

Reviews

Highlights