Darling Beastlettes

Author: Gina Abelkop

Publisher: Apostrophe Books (2012)

A mix of violence and humor offers just a glimpse of Abelkop's poetic vision whereby in poem after poem she explores the gritty and sometimes sinister side of sexuality in mock-romantic and surrealist fashion: "A murder / glided in last night, nested / in your bouffant, stayed / for months." With disturbing wit she takes aim at shattered domesticity, while also exploring the often bizarre and disturbing realm of gender politics. This is an ominous, gothic universe where the jagged terrain of the human body becomes a canvas for uncanny scenes full of perversity and complexity, beauty and brutality. Each poem is a collage made from snapshots, memories, or the fractured mise-en-scène of wives and women—historical, imagined, mythological, fabulist, and cinematic. Grappling with fear, desire, lust, and uncertainty, the frenzied inhabitants of Abelkop's world blur the distinction between prayer and cannibalism.