Cover Art

People are always surprised when I tell them that I often find myself only noting the title of a poem or a book after I have finished reading said piece of writing. I also rarely title what I am writing until after it is finished. I always worry that titles will give too much away or that if you title too soon you will force what you are writing to conform instead of letting it breath. I am trying, however, to be more conscious of titles in my own work and in the work that I am reading.

When Underlife by January Gill O’Neil came to me in the mail, I couldn’t wait to read it but the title and the quality of the physical book itself made me slow down. First off, the title made me ponder what exactly would underlife mean? Personal thoughts? Spirituality? Etc? Then the beauty of the book from its cover art to the typeset was so impressive that I found myself slowly turning the pages to get a feel for each individual piece of paper. The poems inside gave me the same competing feelings: I wanted to rush and gobble up the poems but they were so engaging that I found myself also wanting to ease down so I could read them over and over.

How do I review a book that I just found so wholly satisfying? Maybe mainly to say, it works and I highly recommend it! But, I will also give you a bit more than that!

For a little background on the author you can stop by January’s blog Poet Mom which is how I found her and came to have a copy of Underlife (although I would have bought one! and I might buy more to give away!) This is January’s first collection of poems and as many first books of poems do – it chronicles the life of the narrator. The first section of the book is even titled “Early Memory” where January fearlessly tackles issues of alcoholism as well as race. Probably my favorite poem from this section is “Saturn’s Child” where January writes, “When my father snores / he sucks in the whole world / and releases it in one pure breath.” The child that is present in this poem puts her finger into her father’s mouth just daring to see if he will wake up. It is a fantastic poem that I don’t want to write too much about for fear of giving too much away!

The second section is titled “A True Story.” I found myself making check marks on favorite lines in this section and writing words like fearless and brilliant. I couldn’t help but be reminded of, what we all have probably experienced in a creative writing class, where some story is told that just seems too something to be believable and the author always shouts – but it is a true story! Sometimes reality is even too much for us. You can actually hear January read the first two poems from this section in a video that was made at her book release party:

Moving on to the third section, “The Ripe Time”, I find myself already extending this review past 500 words, so stay with me there is more to say about this terrific collection! These poems make me think of the transitional periods in your life. Think young marriage. Think the desire to be fertile and to have children. Think of poems like “Always, There’s Something” where January writes, “Every house hides a story– / ask it about the grout, / the knots in the hardwood floor.”  There is a literal nesting to these poems but also to nesting into who you are as a person and a poet. There are a quite a few poems in this book, throughout the sections, that really speak to balancing the poetic and the everyday life which – it seems – to this poet are intimately and necessarily intertwined.

The final section of the book shares the title of the book. These poems are about life as a mother. Not just motherhood but the fact that you are still a woman, a worker, a poet even while a mother. I won’t even quote lines from “What Mommy Wants” but if you find the poem or the video of January reading it, you will buy this book. If there is anything negative to say about the book, it could only be to mention there were a few poems that I felt could have had stronger endings but the poems where I had this subjective opinion (“Early Memory” is one example) often dealt with very visceral moments in the narrator’s life, the types of moments that are hard enough to write without me nitpicking whether or not the ending sang the right way because even without my concern over the ending “Early Memory” is still an important poem to the book and one I still enjoyed reading.

You really can’t go wrong picking up this collection. I know January is starting to work on her second collection and I know it will be a while before it comes out but I’ll be eagerly awaiting it.