Simone Muench is a Chicago
poet by way of Louisiana. Her third book of poems, Orange Crush, sets its tone early with her opening lines: "Trouble
came and trouble / brought greasy, ungenerous things." The tempting call
in this poem, "Hex," evokes a depravity which sets the stage for
Muench's central characters: London's seventeenth-century "orange girls,"
who sat outside theaters selling china oranges for six-pence each--or, more
accurately, selling themselves to the
audience, to the men, to the trouble to come.
The title of the volume plays on the soda pop, the fun in orange and the playfulness in crush--whether a violence to something
or a young love for someone. The poems, divided into four sections: "Record,"
"Rehearsal," "Recast," and "Redress" are chock
full of historical moments and tough views on the continued subjugation of
women. The poem "Orange Girl Suite" stands out as a passionate (both
loving and horrifying) revelation of the female plight.
Muench's word choices catch a hard gentility of body and mind with
precise and vile moments: "my skin is soft/the safety's off." And Orange Crush is highly musical; at times
it has the pace of a horror-movie score, leading the reader through blows,
lacerations, and violent deaths. But the poems don't offer observation from a point of weakness, quite
the opposite. There is no whining, only a continued fascination, and, in some
cases, enjoyment in the said depravity.
"[These poems] acknowledge the violence inherent in human beings," yet
realize our "choosing creation over destruction, to both survive and
resist … empathy," offers Muench by way of context. One of today's best poets, she has produced an astonishing work
that is poignant, tells a story, and both challenges and pleases the reader. All
in all, his is a highly effective, alarming collection of poems.
from "Orange Girl Suite"
hunter, I hand you
a red sweater, whisper
of precipitation.
trigger-happy laughter
in the light-latticed
forest. you burn
my nightgown
to undergrowth
in this feral
season. overseer
to all small
deaths, your lips
an orange smear
of cordiality.
Mark Eleveld is a co-founder of EM Press (www.em-press.com), editor of The Spoken
Word Revolution, and host of Slam the
Radio: Poetry on Sirius/XM radio. He programmed the first Poetry Jam at
the White House for the President and Mrs. Obama in 2009.
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