Dear Phyllis Klein,
In the past I participated in Model United Nations (MUN), a debate team where participants represented a country in a mock debate based on real world issues. I spent hours creating binders upon binders of my carefully annotated research and position papers, which required constant awareness of international news. After leaving MUN, the news became something I looked at for awareness. But I also feared it. Keeping up with the news will twist your stomach some days. In The Full Moon Herald, you immerse the reader in this necessary discomfort through your poems crafted after news headlines discussing hope, tragedy, and uncertainty.
Reading your work was freeing, it let me experience the eye-stinging, deep-inhale-of-breath emotions that often come along with reading or seeing the news. The first sentence of “In The Year of The Disease” rings in my head, “There was nothing more to lose until / there was.” You do not shy away from more uncomfortable emotions like fear, loss, and uncertainty. Instead you acknowledge them fully, let the reader embrace what troubles and floods their mind when reading the news. You hide nothing from the reader, but warn them. In your piece titled “Don’t Read This Poem” you state “Don’t read this poem because / it’s too hopeless,” what a great commentary on how it feels once one has read devastating news.
You create impact with imagery, simile, metaphor, and wordplay throughout your book. In “It Should Be Me Who is Looking After You,” “the words fly off the paper / to settle on tear drops, / tiny lanterns, drifting”. We see devastation and longing so vividly. You create comforting scenes that contrast the subjects they discuss, such as in “Charlottesville Nocturne,” where you personify memories that “slink around my bed, like cats / of all sizes, grooming.” Your poems are immersive, submerging the mind of the reader.
In MUN I used to take home awards for my work in the debate room; being cooperative, polite, and well researched—seeing the resolutions I helped come up with as realistic, if only it were that simple. Your poems allowed me to feel comfortable being uncomfortable, reminding me that I am not alone in my inability to stomach the news on certain days because of how they tear at my insides.
Your collection takes detachment away from the news, and left me full of a desire to immerse myself in headlines once again and see them in a new light.
Your fan,
Gabrielle Grilli
